


Episode 3 - Come with Me to the Casbah

by Aintzane



Series: Small Fish in a Big Pond - Volume One [4]
Category: Warhammer - All Media Types, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-01 19:11:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15149936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aintzane/pseuds/Aintzane
Summary: Volentia is eager to solve the riddle she encountered during her Interrogator training. Chaos Lords and rogue traders alike are fascinated by the mystical treasure of a fortress in the cursed sands. The eerie power that resides inside has turned mad most of those who are attracted to the backwater world from their haunted dreams.





	1. Prologue

Aphedron the Magnificent was chilling in the bath as he usually did in the evening. Red and blue tiles of the verandah were still hot to the touch, but the sun was already so low its scarlet rays couldn't get through the lush foliage of the evergreen garden.

The rogue inquisitor's interrogator was still sitting in the corner with a dataslate in her hands, buttoned up to the collar, neck and chin wrapped in her scarf. Such an irresponsible moron had been unable to raise her as real operatives Aphedron had seen during the Great War. She was afraid even when trying to answer to his jokes. She hadn't probably ever seen a naked man either. Let alone a man so magnificent.

‘Reading is bad for the eyes, they say, but mostly for the personality.’ He sat up with lazy grace and looked at his captive-guest. ‘Most smarties I've known have got bird feet and beaks but lost every degree of appeal.’

‘You suggest contemplating your magnificence instead, I do remember,’ the girl put her dataslate on the floor, gave him a wily glance and flushed.

‘Or just have a look past the palm trees and magnolias. What do you see there?’

‘The old fortress. Half-buried in sand, it has just appeared from the mist on the horizon when the sun started setting.’

‘It's called the Casbah by the locals, but I've found a hundred other names mumbled by mad witches and written down by nerdy scribes. It is known to store the greatest of treasures, my old friend told me uncounted centuries ago.’

He doubted whether the Panther could be still called his friend. They were much similar in character and attitude, and had been close as brothers when his own legion was down to just two hundred, and the Panther's Luna Wolves were full of joy and vigour under the leadership of their newfound sire. While the Warmaster hadn't ruined Aphedron's youthful hopes yet.

First the Panther changed after he had lost his squad on a backwater planet of forgotten shrines. An ambitious void-born child of some pirate, he hadn't spoken much about his parents before, but when he woke up from a drug-induced sleep after the operation, his unconscious ramblings made many of his brethren mock him behind his back. A Queen's son and heir.

He didn't lie on that day. He waited for the future riot outbreak with hidden delight to use his enchanted royal relics and pave his way to ascension. Aphedron himself didn't share his joy as he was a spoiled child of a wealthy family. He'd left his rich but stale world to get rid of an unwanted marriage and the inevitable transformation into a fat lazy swine clad in gold.

Mirthful Children of a majestic Father, deemed worthy to bear His symbol on their armour. While their brilliant gene-sire hadn't turned into a hysterical serpent yet. Aphedron didn't want to choose sides on Istvaan or on Terra. The Great Riot meant drugs, wine and women. On credit, as he'd learned with centuries of debauchery. He didn't want to become a daemon prince as many of his friends and peers. He'd rebelled against the Autocrat not to get into a worse kind of slavery. His lustful patron was but mindless thirst, ready to drink his soul as it had swallowed countless Aeldari souls with its birth scream.

His hope was there, beyond the sand-ridden houses of the abandoned village, beyond the silky sea of dunes. The wind grew stronger. It brought back the titillating smell of musk and ambergris that never left his dreams after the first attempt to open the sealed golden gates of the Casbah. Another unsullied latent psyker to tempt the beastly guards of the place. You should have left your mentor long ago if you had an ounce of common sense, girl.

The perfumed bathing water was getting cooler. Aphedron reached out for the interrogator, and his wet tentacle slapped her on the rear. She flinched and leapt aside.

‘Nothing personal. Just be so kind to pour me a glass of good wine to warm up before the journey.’

She approached him cautiously and put the glass on the small table next to the bath. Aphedron spread his tentacles and licked his lips with his serpentine tongue. He swallowed the wine with a quick gulp and stood up before the interrogator in all his stark naked magnificence. To her credit, she had guts not to look away. Aphedron ran his finger down her cheek.

‘Come with me to the Casbah, my little one.’


	2. I

Glyceris didn't recognize me when I knocked on his door. The disheveled man in dirty rags was a shadow of his former kingpin self. He dwelled alone in a decaying abandoned mansion in the bleak outskirts of a city permanently veiled in heavy smog.

The memories of this frontier world were still vivid years after I'd set foot on its surface during my ill-fated apprenticeship. Its northern continent was occupied by the hive that extended from snow-covered mountains of the polar cap to the narrow strip of sea that separated it from the sandy shores where the enigmatic fortress of Aphedron's dreams stood among the dunes. The locals thought the southern lands were a cursed place, left by the inhabitants even before the Heresy, and towns and villages beyond the sea sheltered but convicts and smugglers who had nothing to lose.

Seldom visited by Imperial officials, the world lived by itself, sustained by relatively primitive technologies. Street gangs fought in dark alleys and sidestreets while the aristocracy enjoyed sunlight in their crystal solars miles over the surface. Many jobless citizens moved to waste-polluted outskirts where cheap town houses and cottages were built of shit and sticks among slagheaps and stunted trees.

The past owner of the former kingpin's mansion should have been a wealthy man once, but the district had been abandoned and blighted centuries ago. Carcasses of long dead trees surrounded the peeled, rotten building with mauled doors and broken windows. Generations of burglars had stolen everything even remotely worthy before Glyceris squatted it to nurture his madness.

I'd learned from Ordo investigators that he'd changed more than twenty worlds on his mindless journey. Nine worlds ago his wife had left him with almost all his wealth, and the rest had been spent to the dime for spook and brandy. Gaunt and skinny as a dessicated corpse, he stood before me with an unfinished bottle of cheap booze in his trembling yellow hands.

‘He's sent you. Her ancient rival.’ He showed his rotten teeth in a mean grin.

‘Just don't disappoint us like that.’ I shook my head. ‘You praised your discretion when we talked in the underhive slurs last time.’

‘Her breath crosses the abyss to reach us outcasts doomed to crave for the cup of her whoredom.’

‘Drugs kill, man.’ Uncle frowned.

‘Might be chaotic taint.’ Angel warned me.

I probed his aura with caution, ready to retreat at any moment. Nothing familiar and almost nothing peculiar. A faded note of musk that lasted for a second that might be just the world's mark. Yet he recoiled at my psychic touch with a frantic scream.

‘He sees me. He will find the old fool. He will find the porphyrous champion. He will find the predator.’

‘A relatively normal human aura,’ I said. ‘But drugs have ruined his brain. His sanity has been enough to arrive to the same world Pimenta is still hiding on.’

‘Judging by the story of your youth,’ Angel said, ‘the place has an impure secret that attracts heretics. Let's inform the Ordo Malleus lest we risk to get corrupted.’

‘The daemon-hunters are way too clamorous in their custom of shooting from the hip. I want to untangle the case to the end. It's connected to something more disturbing than the summoning on Coreopsis.’

Fluffster approached the shivering ex-tycoon, and a small syringe appeared from his paw. Glyceris gasped at the injection and took a deep breath. A minute later he paced back to the unlit rooms slowly.

‘Let's enter,’ Fluffster said. ‘A bit of neuroleptics will give temporary respite to his weary mind.’

I stepped in first lighting my flashlight. Lumps of dirty spiderwebs and dust stuck to my hat and coat as I moved through the long corridor following the madman. Most of the room doors were broken, and the rooms were packed with layers of nearly fossilized rubbish.

Glyceris lived in the shaded part where he couldn't hear any noise from the nearby cottages. His quarters stank of booze and human waste, and the walls were covered with strange shapes he had drawn on dust and soot. He curled up in his nest of rags paying no more attention to the intruders. All windows in the room were boarded up save the one that faced south. Hot wind from the slagheaps burst in through the deformed frame, and I bet I felt a hint of musk and ambergris again.

‘I doubt he'll ever be able to talk to us.’ I sat down to a broken box.

‘There must be other items that can talk instead,’ Fluffster said. ‘I will try some serums to restore at least part of his sanity for a while.’

‘Pimenta has arrived here right after Atlas embarked to Coreopsis. He is always moving from district to district, and even the news of his daughter's execution didn't bother him. He hasn't done anything heretical yet, if reports are to believe, and spends his days drinking and duelling for money.’

‘I wish I knew how he got mad and for how long the madness had been creeping under the pompous image of a crime boss.’ Fluffster looked at the man mumbling in his sleep.

‘There was nothing remarkable in his youth. Atlas and Pimenta were his trading companions, and he'd had a few deep space raids before he got married and settled in the city. Then something forced him to return to the slurs after he broke up with his buddies. The last voyage when the whole crew died after a dysfunction of the Gellar field. He lied to me on that evening, when he told me about the frightening discovery. He was aboard the ship as well but decided to give up rogue trade after the accident.’

‘We'll learn what he saw there.’

‘Hope we're not to live in this dump,’ Uncle said indignantly. ‘Only a madman can choose a junkyard for a house. Not an ounce of comfort but dust, stench and infection.’

‘Let's move the owl to the roof to hide it behind a collapsed section of the attic,’ I suggested. ‘But first we have to examine the mansion for clues.’

‘It's evening, lassie. We've been riding the owl for six hours from the space port to the Hummocks. Now I'll use our remaining food stocks to prepare dinner, and you have half an hour to roam around.’

There was nothing of use in Glyceris' bedroom. Rows of bottles, bags of trash he'd probably found in the local garbage heaps to sell them for more booze, week-old unfinished sandwiches, expired instant noodles.

‘Hobo chic.’ I smiled. ‘An easy way to get rid of the obsessive cult of body pleasures. I've always felt uneasy at Uncle's cult of food while that was the only reason why my mentor valued him more than other hired guns.’

‘The type of a concerned daddy that'll hang polka dot curtains in a bomb shelter before an Exterminatus.’ Fluffster shook his head. ‘Exactly like Lord Platydoras. The kind of people running around and yelling at the storm that has ruined their gingerbread houses.’

‘I can understand Uncle's paranoia. He was far away when cultists murdered his children and his wife died of grief. He's always nervous when one of us three leaves the owl. The venture to the traitor camp has given him lots of new grey hairs.’

‘He mustn't serve an Inquisitor if he's going to cluck over his boss as if she's a toddler.’

‘I'd agree while Angel and Sister would not.’

‘Once you go on long enough, you'll get why they haven't grown up and will hardly ever do.’

‘I'm aware of the peculiarities of their training. But, if we talk about space marines, Aphedron and Aspersum are obviously different as well as the Iron Hands.’

‘The Iron Hands are hardened barbarians who stay among their kind for longer than the Blood Angels and cultivate their warlike spirit. But I wouldn't call that real maturity. Some chapters resist the post-Heresy cowardly custom of emasculating the Imperium's defenders. The Space Wolves, the Salamanders, the Raven Guard and more. As for the Chaos Lords, that's a totally different thing. They were taken from their homeworlds as young men, not kids, and were raised not to linger in a decaying world but to be paragons of a new life after the Great Crusade. There's irony in the fact that the best men of that time died, and only the fallen traitors live on as a reminder of His Angels' past glory.’

We walked on tiptoes past snoring Glyceris and went up a rotten stairway. The tin roof above rumbled under heavy steps as Angel was helping Uncle to park the owl. Fluffster pointed down and lit the stepway with his flashlight.

‘Have you noticed that?’

‘Deep cracks, about to collapse.’ I shrugged my shoulders.

‘Not that. You have to be extremely attentive to solve cases quickly and effectively. The layer of dust is not as thick as in the other places, and there're even footprints. He used to visit the attic quite frequently. About a month ago for the last time.’

‘So if he has some clues or relics, we should search upstairs.’

I wrapped my scarf around the lower half of my face and pushed the attic door. It suddenly fell off its hinges, and a cloud of stirred dust enveloped us. Fluffster covered his nose with one paw and hurried to a large closed window, kicking away pieces of decayed furniture and shards of glass. He opened the shutters, and grey twilight leaked into the trashed attic.

‘The southern window again,’ I said. ‘The other ones are all boarded up.’

‘You know the answer. Look at the footprints here.’

‘Right over his sleeping nest.’

Empty bottles and food boxes stood in even half-circle rows like a fortress rampart. Behind the improvised parapet next to the wall there was an untidy heap of used paper towels mottled with dried blood. Fluffster picked it up carefully, and I saw uneven written lines on the lower towel sheets. Underneath, in a wide gap between the floor boards, we found a lump of crumpled paper. When I took it out, I caught a slight disturbance in the warp around.

‘The sheets are a diary of madness.’ I nodded at the yellowed towels. ‘The earliest have almost even writing, and the latest are a chaotic mess of weird symbols. I don't remember anything like that in the manuals. Only a few look remotely like Genestealer spiral emblems. But the man isn't a genestealer himself for sure. There should have been other traces of a cult.’

‘Sister will analyze the blood of this writing. We'll arrange the sheets in time order after dinner.’

‘The crumpled thing is way more suspicious. It's also handwriting but a different hand. A table of standard date and coordinates here. A page from a spaceship log-book.’

I unwrapped the paper carefully, and a small shard of glass fell out to my hand. I felt like it was a stab to my chest where the sacrificial mark had been. The shard edges were smooth as if molten by a great flame, and inside there was a barely visible dark spot. A gust of wind brought the smell of musk again, and this time it didn't fade away in a second.

‘Give it to me and don't look inside.’ Fluffster suddenly snatched the shard from my palm.

‘A corrupted flect?’

‘Worse. Even a shard as small as this costs a fortune.’

‘Let's sell it and buy a ship then.’ I winked at him. ‘Tired of running around spaceports in search for a desperate moron who agrees to work with us.’

‘You'll give up the idea when you learn where it's from. There was a void construct named Torquetum right at the borders of the Eye of Terror. Once a band of sorcerer-brethren arrived there to ask a question to the Iron Oculus, a mighty oracle sealed within the Silver Pavilion of Torquetum. They were way too gullible, and let in a horrible foe. They managed to escape with the oracle's help, and the moment they left the station it split into trillions of shards, and each of them carried a shadow of the foe's presence. The great warp storm in the last days of the Heresy carried the shards throughout the galaxy, and they're believed to lead to wealth and power but lead to damnation only.’

‘That thing is the source of his wealth. Like the daemonic crown. He mocked me when I asked about the purple pearls, but the thing he keeps is the same kind of crap.’

‘It needs to be contained lest you wish to attract unnecessary attention. It's safer than in the times of the Heresy but still.’

We left the attic and walked out to the roof. The clouds above were already almost dark, and countless lights were scattered over the Hammocks as if starry skies unfurled underneath. A small lamp cast a warm glow on the owl door, and a tasty smell of cooking stew was wafting from the inside. Uncle was sitting in the doorway peeling oranges, and Sister and Angel were waiting for dinner with spoons and bowls at ready. The steaming teapot was neatly covered with a cosy, the tablecloth on our small table was perfectly clean and smooth.

‘You said half an hour.’ Fluffster frowned.

‘I have to care for all three, and you're never eager to help, you lazy rodent,’ Uncle grunted back.

‘Fluffster has been busy working with Volentia,’ Sister spoke up for the cricetid.

‘Volentia has been working, and the rodent has been hanging out with her as usual. I only wonder how he ever manages to be on time while he's that slow.’

‘The faster you chase the future, the likelier it will evade you.’ Fluffster disappeared inside the owl with a sigh.

I sat to the table and put the heap of sheets on my knees.

‘Lassie, take this crap away. It's not for dinner. They're infested worse than a train toilet.’

‘Just one of them. It's urgent.’

I swallowed a spoonful of stew and smoothed the record sheet carefully. Frail and burnt on one side, it was no easy reading. The journey itself must have been kinda special as the captain had decided to give up digital logs. For no one could see them save the closest circle.

The dates had been erased by the burn, and only a half of the coordinates was readable. ‘Warp route Kappa-Beta seven-three-seven, So...’ I typed that into the search field of the Galaxy map on my dataslate. The route from Ultramar to Sotha, previously used to carry supply cargoes to the now-dead homeworld of the Scythes of the Emperor. Now out of use for about a decade after the Tyranids had ravaged the sector. A subtle hint of the foul devourer again.

‘The seventieth day since we turned away from the route. The depths of the warp are almost empty as if a giant shadow has fallen over us. Even warp-krakens have disappeared giving way to eerie shapes weaved from dirty smoke. The smell of musk prevails throughout. Pimenta is laughing like he's high, and Glyceris is shaking in terror.’

Late captain Atlas. Even the Lutetia conspiracy was probably petty compared to this strange quest. Glyceris had reasons to get obsessed with security and prudence, even though that didn't help.

‘Day seventy-one. The shadow's getting deeper. Pimenta suggested shutting down the Gellar field, but no one supported the decision.’

‘Day seventy-three. The smell is suffocating. The astropaths are comatose. The crew is ready to start a mutiny. I had to promise them a bigger share of our future wealth to pacify them.’

‘Day seventy-five. Pimenta has turned off the field at ‘night,’ and the vessel is overwhelmed by the smoke. We've started seeing dreams again, obscure and fleeting. The same seen by every member of the crew: a fortress outline in the distance. The crystal shard is glowing brighter every hour.’

‘Day eighty. We've entered an asteroid field. Uncounted thousands of shards are floating amid the thick smokescreen. Crystal, obsidian and brass inscribed with phosphorous runes. The smell is sickening. The crew has been halved by now. Every hour we find new pools of blood with the rest of the bodies evaporated by the eerie smoke. It has condensed into bestial silhouettes constantly floating at the very edge of our field of vision. They don't approach us as long as long as we keep close to the shard. The dreams repeat every day with deadly precision.’

‘Day eighty-six. The crew is all dead. For the better. The diary didn't lie. A splendid sight, a scarlet serpent that can swallow suns whole...’

The end. Glyceris had torn it out of the log journal even though it had been likely to cost him his life. Aphedron wasn't the only one to have learned about the treasure hidden in the strange fortress. I'd asked some inquisitors about that and had even tried to find clues in the Ordo Library on Uebotia, but there were virtually no records of other encounters.

After the dinner I walked to the edge of the roof where the cricetid was devouring another block of processed cheese.

‘That obnoxious hired gun has at least one good trait.’ He crumpled the foil and unwrapped a new portion. ‘He never forgets to buy my favourite treat.’

I retold him the logs.

‘I'll send a request to Ultramar. Something must have survived the Hive Fleet invasion. And we have to contact Lord Corydoras, he has access to the archives on Luna. He might even agree to contact the Librarium of Titan through his acquaintance of Lady Cichlasoma.’

‘As if it could change anything.’ He grumbled with sadness I didn’t expect. ‘Do you really believe a single solved case can drive the gathering storm away? That's just another harbinger of the events we've been waiting with fear for all the hundred centuries.’

‘We mustn't give up anyway.’

‘I've seen more than you and I'm tired to death. My mentor burnt to ashes long ago, and my peers are too short-sighted. I've failed in everything I could, and now I'm condemned to this silly body. A funny animal from a petting zoo.’

‘Tomorrow we'll go to the city to find Pimenta. Cheer up. I'm also tired of Imudon's stalking but we have to do our job. The very idea of going to bed sounds disgusting after the latest jolly weeks in the warp.’

‘Imudon won't disturb you in the proximity of the shard. But you have to watch out for the madman. He's back on his feet. Listen.’

Quiet creeking of the stairway. Careful steps in the attic underneath. A desperate, insane howl.

‘He's taken my treasures! He's robbed me! He's found me! Found me!’

‘I wish I knew who are those he mentions.’

‘You will one day,’ Fluffster’s tone was sinister.

Glyceris’ fists pummeled on the door to the roof. He yowled and sobbed, too weak to break it down.

‘Fluffster, open the door and grab him by the neck.’

‘I'll try some medicines at night anyway.’

‘Right now.’

Fluffster unbolted the door without a word. Glyceris screamed trying to writhe out of his iron grip. When I slapped him on the shoulder, he froze in panic.

‘What happened to the diary you've found before embarking?’

‘Your puppeteer needs it,’ he whispered with his eyes closed.

‘Yes.’ I decided to play along with his delirium.

‘I haven't seen it since we returned. Pimenta has taken it for himself. All I managed to get was that record page... And a small chink of the shard. Tell him to go after Pimenta, not me. Not me. Not me.’

The rest was muffled out by scared, plaintful sobs. Sister came closer and took him by the hands. He didn't even move, rendered helpless by some unknown threat.

I gave the rest of the sheets to Fluffster and retreated to the owl. Pimenta had been seen in the bars of the Moonshine Corners for a few times during the last month, and he'd never been discreet. His blademaster skills made him a deadly adversary but with a space marine by my side I had nothing to worry about. I wasn't sure what we should do next. None of my acolytes would agree but the dangerous perspective thrilled and haunted me years after the first attempt. I had to break in to the Casbah.


	3. II

The next morning was as grey as the day before. I looked through the towel sheets after breakfast but there was nothing really new. A rambling account of the days after Glyceris' divorce and ruin. Brief accounts of the places he'd stopped in mixed with punctual description of his feverish dreams. The closer he got to the planet, the more detailed and precise the dreams became. Exactly the same I'd seen - the fortress outline in the majestic sunset skies, cyclopean gates of wrought red gold, hideous theroid monsters engraved on the colossal leaves.

Prior to his arrival to this world the diary had gradually lost all sense and structure. Lines were uneven, sentences turned into mixtures of random words. Then even words and letters disappeared giving place to eerie symbols.

 In the afternoon Sister and Uncle stayed in the mansion to watch over him after the first serum injection while Angel and Fluffster got fully equipped to follow me to the city. We planned to pose as a golden youth couple with an augmented bodyguard. Without his iconic armour the Blood Angel didn't look much different from the local nobility - a well-fed tall scion of the high spires who's arrived to the lower city to have fun. I spent some of our funds to order clothes and accessories by drone delivery to mix in with the locals.

‘Just noticed how pretty you are.’ I patted the marine's shoulder as he was tying his new ornate neckerchief with awkward embarrassment.

‘I've never been to a place like that. Is it like feasts at Governor palaces?’

‘Not really. I'll tell you how to behave to be in the right swag.’

I was trying to apply wine-red lipstick evenly before a dusty broken mirror in one of the rooms glancing at the marine in the reflection. The Emperor's work of wonder had let a waifish boy from scorched deserts turn into a paragon of angelic beauty, a true copy of his sire. Dreams of orphanage girls coming true - going to a party with a handsome cavalier like in long-forgotten fairy tales. Though he lacked manly power and maturity of Aphedron or Imudon, I thought suddenly. A boy, not even a youth let alone a man.

‘We will eat and drink and praise the Emperor there.’ He looked at me with a toddler's innocence.

‘Drink, and dance on the bar stand, and brawl.’

‘What will be my role?’ He was obviously puzzled.

‘To pretend we're spoiled kids on a badass date. Believably, of course. I've uploaded Pimenta's biometrics to the cyber-moth, so we'll party hard for some time in the same bar as he. Then you'll have to provoke him for a duel so that we could stun and abduct him.’

‘Challenge for a combat, you mean?’

‘Not like you marines do on the battlefield. Like slur punks do. Shove him and cuss at him. Word after word, you'll call him out and we get it over with. Just behave like a man.’

‘How will we carry him here?’

‘We'll tell the cab driver he's our buddy who's had too much booze.’

‘You've been to such parties before.’

‘My mentor wasn't picky about hiring new acolytes, so most of them were underhivers, and most of our operations were conducted in fishy places.’

‘Easy to guess his ignorance of people let him meddle with heretics and was the reason of his damnation.’

‘It was fun, to be honest. But I had to learn how to pull out the pistol before a mad junkie hurls a bar chair at me.’

‘Isn't it too garish, lassie?’ Uncle looked at my flashy gown with some disapproval. ‘Frivolous clothes are for featherbrained coquettes, not for agents of the Throne.’

‘It's not clever to be a prude in a speakeasy bar. And I'll have this classy fellow beat the crap out of any who dares to bother me.’

‘I'd go there with you to watch over you. You'll get into trouble with the rodent's complicity.’

‘You weren't that afraid when I was going to the camp of the Iron Warriors.’

‘That was war, not youthly show-off. And that was already over the edge.’

I felt a bit unsure in the new image as I was too simple and plain to act as a spire cutie. Like the gown ruffles could tear off or the lipstick smudge at the wrong time. Yet flashy stuff empowered no worse than armour. I recalled Plodia's innate chic. A true daughter of the cream of the crop, she felt at home at solemn feasts and pirate taverns alike.

We decided to get to the city border in the owl and then call a cab to the Moonshine Corners. There was almost no precise distinction between the outskirts and the half-criminal middle levels of the hive. Not as dirty and shabby as the evernight of the underhive, they were a perfect place to spend a good sum of money to try forbidden amusements of drugs and gambling.

Irregular streets ran upwards along narrow deep coves, and humpback bridges led from level to level lit by dim orange lamps. Heavy smog hadn't melted in the evening, the mist weaving into eerie shapes lit by neon signs of most obnoxious colours. Here and there on the broken pavements bottles and torn packages lay in heaps nobody had cleaned for weeks. Brightly dressed loiterers crowded bridges and plazas in hundreds, many already too drunk to stand straight.

As we were driving by, my vox bead beeped. Target found and located.

‘Drop us at ‘Hog'n'Shroom,’ I told the cabman.

Generous tip would erase any suspicion. Angel held the microchip ring to the terminal without unnecessary questions, and I smiled approvingly. We got out of the cab, followed by the taciturn cricetid, and passed under the flickering sign into the smoky lounge.

I took Angel's arm and pulled a broad, rakish smile. The bar was buzzing with wastrels and drunkards in most unimaginable garbs. Puffs of narcotic smoke were rising to the ceiling, lit by countless spinning flashes of glitter balls, and the whole building was shivering at the deafening, rowdy music.

Angel's face was embarrassed and shy. He grabbed my hand tight and tried not to look around. I dragged him to the bar stand with the usual jolly chattering of a city ladette. It was time to forget about being too good without going radical. Fluffster stopped at a column gazing at the tables impassively.

The man we were looking for had just sitten down at the distant end of the bar stand with ten shots of some oddly coloured hooch. Even with his worn, scarred face he looked quite young for his years. His clothes were shabby and garish, adorned with the same ominous spirals stitched in scarlet silk all over his cloak and beret. It would be wise to wait till the others started brawling and just mingle with the crowd.

With Angel's help I pushed through the drinkers and winked to the bartender.

‘Something heady for the lad! He's totally intimidated at his first date. And a shot of brandy for me to put up with his lack of confidence.’

‘The lady's risky enough to start with strong booze.’

I leaned on the bar stand and swallowed the shot. The bartender poured me another one. I felt trouble and unease dissolve as contours started floating. Soon I engaged into nonsensical small talk with the bartender and a dead-drunk loiterer who was constantly trying to tell a joke but always forgot the ending. Angel watched me with a kind smile. After the third shot the bartender suggested trying a special sort of absinthe. Something strong to be brave and easy-going.

The bright green beverage seemed to glow in the shot glass. I could only hope there was no warp-infused junk in it. It nearly incinerated my throat, and I had to grab Angel's arm to stay on my feet.

‘Why not dance, honey?’ I pulled him towards the dance floor in vertiginous joy. ‘Let's show 'em all who's the hottest fellow around.’

‘You're drunk,’ he whispered. ‘It will be hard to arrest the heretic.’

I perched on the bar stand and hugged Angel by the neck. A bright stain of lipstick was left on his pale cheek.

‘With his height and muscles, I would never have thought your sweetheart is such a total softie. You'd better turn attention to one of our regulars.’ The bartender smirked. ‘As tall as him but badass as hell. A perfect match if you don't mind a one-night stand but if you're lucky enough...’

Angel frowned his forehead hesitantly. While a regular brawler would hurl the bartender at the bottle stand.

‘He means I'm not the only space marine here. He wants me to fight him.’

‘The man has finished his shots.' I gave him a shove. ‘Let's dance on the bar stand and kick off his glasses as if by accident.’

‘You'd better show the rosette openly.’

‘So that the entire bar will flee in panic. Or even worse, attacks us. So don't do anything without a direct order.’

I leapt up and stamped my heel on the bar stand at the sounds of music. A man at the opposite wall pushed a half-naked woman off his lap and stood upright. A real giant, he wore a shiny cloak of purple brocade, and his silver-white hair was tied into a bun revealing glistening gems in his eyebrows and ears. The cloak fully covered his left arm, and I realized what was hidden underneath.

In mere moments Aphedron Pansexualis reached the stand and pushed the Blood Angel aside offhandedly.

‘Dearie, why the hell have you decided to take this slick out for a date?’ He grabbed me by the waist.

‘You two already know each other.' The bartender turned back from his barrels and bottles. ‘Vesper or Panpacificus Sling?’

‘Panpacificus with extra junk. I have to stay awake to please the cutie.’

‘Heretic and traitor.' I read Angel's lips as his face got red with his legion's famous wrath.

‘We're old buddies.' Aphedron went on chatting with the bartender ignoring the indignant stare. ‘She's just outstanding at her civil work. Especially when she manages human resources. Wish you saw her office's emblem.’

I reached for my pistol hidden under a layer of skirt ruffles.

‘The design is ugly as shit.’ Aphedron winked, and the bartender roared with laughter.

The Emperor's Child gulped his cocktail, crushed the glass in his fist and jumped up next to me. His hand slipped down to my rear, and I flinched. He lifted me up easily as a new rowdy tune started playing.

‘You're drunk as a skunk, babe,’ he whispered in a mean tone. ‘Your thoughts are so loud as if you're about to broadcast them to the whole Eye.’

'Your recovery has been quite quick.’

'She-Who-Thirsts doesn't let her devotees stay in a pathetic sick state for long.’

‘You have a beef with the same man as me.’

‘And you're going to stand between me and my prize.’

‘Nothing personal, just business.’

‘You'll tell that to my best friend.’ He made an obscene gesture.

‘Your company is away right now.’

‘Just don't blush like that. Awkward drunken flirt gives out a completely innocent workaholic at once. As for me, I was a few years younger than you when I was already known as an irresistible lady-killer. I hoped you've got some experience since our last meeting.’

‘I doubt you mean factory work or engine-handling by the word ‘experience,’ but my last mission looked like that.’

‘Sorry for you then. But if you ever want to fill the gap, pick up someone less wimpy than your blonde manchild.’

‘You know why I'm here.’

‘Will you thank me well for a bit of help?’

We waltzed along the bar stand, and he leapt over glasses and bottles with grace unimaginable for his stature. The rhythm of the dance was getting quicker and headier, and soon we were dancing right in front of the drowsy blademaster. He'd ordered a few more shots, and the moment he reached for another glass Aphedron kicked it off the stand right to the man's face.

Pimenta jumped to his feet in blind drunken fury. He was neither tall nor strong, but his madness-induced suicidal love for constant brawls made him brave enough to attack an Angel of Death with a rusty toothpick. He tore off his cloak and tossed it to the floor, and I saw a small purse of scarlet silk hanging on his scarred neck. A burst of psyonic pain. I tripped on an overturned glass and gripped Aphedron's cloak not to fall over the stand.

Aphedron slapped me on the rear and dropped me into Fluffster's outstretched paws. Pimenta drew his rapier and swished it with a crazy yell. The drunkards gave way to the brawlers with customary indifference.

‘I'll turn you on my blade like a pig on the spit, you damn lamppost,’ Pimenta shouted.

‘I draw my sword only when I'm about to grapple with a saucy slut.’ Aphedron showed him his middle finger. ‘I'll finish you with a mere kick to the balls. If you have any, boozer bastard.’

He leapt down with a dancer's show-off. His stately shape towered over Pimenta, a predator ready to tear up a lesser beast who dared to stand in his way. Too crazy to be afraid, Pimenta waved his hand pointing at the door. Aphedron bowed his head with a cheeky grin as I drew my pistol, then followed the blademaster.

I tugged at Fluffster's fur impatiently.

‘Out, quicker. The sweet child of Sanguinius has failed at everything.’

‘He isn't fit for city duties. Try to use him now if you wish.’

‘He's the only one able to snatch the purse from Aphedron.’

We all ran out as fast as we could, followed by the drunkards' lazy gazes. Angel strode first with a bolt pistol in his hand, pushing aside curious loiterers who stopped to look at the duel.

When we forced our way to the street, the duel was already over. Aphedron stood on the closest bridge posing for picts with a purple orchid he'd got from an admirer. The scarlet pouch hung on his elbow, and the smell of musk and ambergris floated around in nauseating waves. Pimenta crouched howling at Aphedron's feet, his sword-hand twisted under an unnatural angle, his smashed face smeared with fresh blood.

Aphedron waited with lazy patience till we came close. Then he kicked Pimenta off the bridge into the deep waters of the dark cove and rushed down. Angel staggered and froze with the pistol in his outstretched hand. Before I could fire my first shot, Aphedron tore the purse from his elbow and stuffed it into the cleavage of my dress.

‘Your share of the prize, babe. Hope you'll be a good girl and won't even try to lay your hands on the shard.’ He grabbed my wrist with a tentacle hidden under the cloak and put the orchid down the barrel of my gun.

He winked at Angel and snatched the bolt pistol from his gauntlet.

‘Thanks for the gun, bro.’

‘Come on, you damn slick!’ I slapped Angel on the shoulder when Aphedron jumped down the pavement onto the roofs of a lower level.

Angel looked at the fleeing traitor with astonishment on his youthly face. I pulled out the orchid and fired my laspistol in a vain hope to wound Aphedron at least. The Emperor's Child didn't even look back to dodge the shots. He stopped and dodged a few more as if dancing. Fluffster put his paw on my shoulder.

‘Don't waste the charge. He was famous for prowess and agility even in times when legionnaires were all peerless champions.’

‘You two slackers. What the hell has happened?’

‘Psyker stuff. And, honestly, Angel is still way too embarrassed by your drunken flirt and the whole rowdy athmosphere.’

‘You could have done something.’

‘Space Marines are hard to kill, and he'd be able to escape even with grievous wounds. I doubt you'll be glad to meet his apothecary.’

When Angel's psychic paralysis left him, I couldn't even sense the trace of Aphedron's presence nearby. For the worse, neither of the marines wore armour so Angel couldn't rely on his auspexes. I let out the cyber-moth hoping search by height would be of some help. The Blood Angel stuffed the vox bead into his ear and pulled out the other pistol.

‘Quicker, while Fluffster is calling the cab.’ I pointed at the lower roofs now half-drowned in condensing mist.

Fluffster headed to the parking, and I retreated to the shaded backyard area not to mess into another brawl. It was almost quiet save a faint sound of a murmuring stream. My intoxication was wearing off slowly but headache came in its stead. It had been wise at least not to have tried the crap favoured by Aphedron.

The air was getting chilly as if a rainstorm was coming. Voices from the outside lowered and died out. A pressing, sickening feeling and sudden emptiness. A dark shadow appeared on the roof above, another one crawled from behind a row of trash cans.

A decade-long custom forced me to flee. Only the most influential officials, the meanest kingpins and my own kind could employ nulls for their service, and neither encounter meant good in my dubious situation. Inquisitorial rivalry was the deadliest of the three. A tall man in a custom-built cuirass and helmet tried to block my way but I kicked him in the shin and slipped under his arm. They didn't shoot at me so they needed me alive.

I ran to the crowded pavement stealing between loiterers. Good that I hadn't been stupid enough to wear the most fashionable heels today. On the edge of the cove a drunkard stepped on the hem of my dress, I slipped on spilled booze and rolled down a bridge to the lower level.

The null aura didn't fade, and I realized they had psyker-detecting auspexes. Full silence on the air, not even a proposal to lay down my arms. I hoped they hadn't managed to break Fluffster's cipher yet.

To my relief, I saw a city railway stop in the end of the street. I tried to disappear among a party of clerks waiting for their train to get home after a late shift. My luck wasn't enough to find another latent psyker to hide in their aura.

A train stopped at the platform, and the clerks rushed in with a frenzy rarely expected from frail servants of the Administratum. The shadow pursuers found me in the crowd, their quick-moving shapes emerging from the backyard of a nearby shop.

I jumped in along with the other passengers and activated the vox.

‘Fluffster, unexpected circumstances. Watch out for me, meet you two in the suburbs.’


	4. III

The train was going down countless bridges from level to level between totally similar rows of office blocks and flickering shop signs. I leaned on the wall between two dusty windows rubbing my forehead. My reflection in the glass looked quite pathetic but not out of my character of a hive ladette breaking bad for the first time. Lipstick had smudged all over my chin, eyeshadow glitter had fallen out to my cheeks, dress ruffles were dirty and torn.

More and more clerks were boarding the train until it was so packed I could hardly breathe. A few stray pieces of glitter fell on an uptight lady's flawless costume when someone opened a window, and she looked at me with contempt. I turned my head towards the window glass trying to figure out where we were going to. The route map was out of sight behind numerous backs in business suits, the clock showed totally nonsensical date and time, as it often happened in suburb trains. It was approximately half past midnight by local time, and the train was probably one of the last till next morning.

Downtown streets gave way to more relaxed suburb districts. Not as dirty and depressed as the outskirts where we had stopped, but quite poorly lit and littered. Dark alleys, cheap townhouses, convenience shops with faded advertisement posters. The clerks were leaving in dozens on every station, and soon I found my way to the map. I typed in the name of the next station and traced the line. It went even further than the outskirts, to the seastrand storages and villages.

Still a great distance to the madman's mansion. I found the route to my destination but it could be reached in the morning only. My dataslate had some charge, so the best solution would be disembarking in a quiet district to find a hostel until Fluffster picked me up.

He reached out to me even quicker. Right after the train left another crowded platform, I heard his voice from the vox bead.

‘Do you copy, Volentia? We've located you. Get off at Cypress Grove Cemetery.’

‘Sounds promising.’

‘Memory of the fleeting character of life is always useful. I'll wait for you there. Now disconnect for your pursuers don't find you.’

‘One last question, is the boy okay?’

‘So-so. You'll see when we meet.’

Short beeps in the vox. Three more stations to go. I sat down on a peeled seat next to a snoring elderly clerk.  The mysterious trackers could have sent their agents to every station on the way so I sneakily checked the laspistol and two emergency grenades. Honestly, I didn't remember any open conflicts with other Inquisitors since the start of my career but my late mentor had made so many bitter enemies they'd be glad to remove any of his former apprentices.

The flash drive with the ill-fated diary was still hidden in the cleavage, and I didn't dare to open it in public. When I recalled that, the faint smell of musk appeared again like a faded trail of a worn-off perfume. The world seemed to be drenched in that damn scent. Captain Atlas had written about that scent of insanity in the logs of his ominous quest. Something emanated by the puzzling entity that dwelled in the spectral fortress among the cursed desert sands. It might be a Greater Daemon of even more terrifying might than Lutetia or an ancient xenos being. A shadow in the warp powerful enough to ward off the masters of the Neverborn. A distant and subtle, but disturbing link to the ever-hungry swarms ready to devour the Galaxy.

The train slowed down going along a dull, grey wall of rockcrete. Here and there triangle tops of black cypresses and mourning angels of the richest graves stuck over the fence, and not so pious graffiti adorned the wall.

I walked out to the old, shabby platform. A few night passengers were smoking or buying tickets and drinks at the vending machines. To the right I saw the outline of a cemetery chapel lit by a few lamps even at night.

I heard Fluffster's voice again. ‘Good. Now go to the lychgate. It's not closed.’

I parted with the other passengers at the bus terminal. The deserted churchyard with faded flowerbeds, a flower shop with a clumsily painted lily on the sign, a shop of religious books and icons with an Aquila banner in the show window. Not a single person around. Massive forged leaves of the lychgate were half-open as if inviting another bad poet to contemplate the moon over the graves and write a tasteless elegy to the inevitable death.

The drowsy watchman didn't even raise his head when a lass walked past him on shaky legs. Fluffster was standing in the shadow of a garish mausoleum under a tall cypress tree.

‘Hi there, Volentia. What the hell has happened again?’

‘Someone powerful enough to employ blanks.’

‘Are you sure they targeted you?’

‘At least two of them pursued me from the bar to the station, and a mercenary tried to catch me.’

‘But they didn't bother to follow you here.’

‘Maybe Aphedron or the drowned swordmaster were worth their attention more than my petty person.’

‘Likelier, a team of Silent Sisters has taken you for a rogue psyker but got a call from the Inquisition on the report.’

‘Anyway, they've driven me to this place of mourning.’

‘I keep a candle burning for myself so I won't feel all alone.’ Fluffster quoted an ancient poem turning on his flashlight.

I recalled another line gazing at the gloomy landscape. ‘Yet we have never celebrated anything here at all.’

‘Hope we won't hear voices from the walls like the nameless poet. But I wouldn't be that sure counting the odd nature of the whole place.’

‘You mean the whole planet.’

‘This very spot as well. I've invited you here not only because it was easier to park the owl on the other side and this is the shortest path. Look at this tasteless monument.’

He walked along the mausoleum wall lighting up the tiles. Most of them missing or broken, the remaining ones had relatively typical abstract patterns of circles and curves. It could be just fatigue and imagination, but I felt vague similarity between the ornaments and the weird symbols on the paper towels.

‘These lines and spirals are common here?’ I walked around to take a few picts.

‘The link is way more impressive. The grave is old, but few really know it's been empty for a few centuries. Look here, the lock and the doors still bear marks of old robbery.’

‘Who was buried here then?’

‘A mindless adventurer like those three morons. He arrived here from a distant sector with great wealth and was quite renowned for venturing south one day. When he came back, he brought no treasures or relics but a strange illness. He locked himself in his inner quarters and never allowed anyone in but a few specially programmed servitors. Not a single pict of him after the return can be found. Finally, the servitors buried him here in a sealed coffin, and a tech-heretical script destroyed them within minutes. But the story didn't end with the burial. While his distant relatives were coming to the planet to divide his immense property, the mausoleum was robbed. The doors were mauled, the coffin smashed to pieces, and the body vanished along with the man's treasures rumoured to be buried with him. Vid-logs of that night were damaged, so the case has never been solved. One thing is known for sure, one of his treasures was a crystal he'd always worn on his neck since his arrival.’

‘Where have you got that? Standard data from the library of Uebotia has no record of this case.’

‘The Mechanicus are a separate branch with arcane knowledge. You can guess what they called ‘crystal’.’

‘Another madman encountered the same strange phenomenon and got a desire to get the fabled prize. I wish I knew how many of them there's been.’

‘More than you can imagine. We own a piece of the same shard. The mysterious robber has probably sold or intentionally lost the man's cursed trinket and his diary to let the knowledge pass on to another adventurous fool.’

‘If we really crack the nut I bet my career will move on,’ I said cheerfully. ‘We just mustn't let Pansexualis get there before us. We'll study the diary on the way.’

‘Sister's medications must have already worked. We’ll interrogate the madman and embark to the coast.’

‘The thing is quite tricky. Smuggler villages on the other side are so warped only a seasoned psyker can find the way to the desert path. My mentor paid a fortune to the old guide who ferried escaped criminals to the cursed place. I'm ready to put our savings on stake as we'll earn much more after the victory.’

Fluffster didn't reply, staring into the darkness with an empty, lifeless gaze. I shook him by the shoulder but he didn't move.

‘I have to stay here,’ his tone was impassive.

‘Fluffster, let's go home, quicker. The foul place's sorcery is dangerous even to you.’

‘Eternal slumber with my dead friends.’

‘No nonsense.’ I tugged him by the paw, and he stepped forward like a mindless puppet. ‘Follow me.’

I moved step by step with great effort, hardly able to drag the hulking rodent to the parking as his legs were already limp, his head droopy.

‘Let me go back,’ he mumbled. ‘Let me sleep among my long-dead friends.’

‘Who's done that crap to you?’ I pulled him one more meter forward and leaned on a cypress tree to have a respite.

I probed his mind, and the backlash was sudden and violent. I flopped to the ground and released Fluffster's paw. He hobbled back to the mausoleum, bumping into gravestones and fences. I leapt back to my feet and ran after him. He stopped and turned to me with a grimace I'd never seen on his face before.

‘I've got even more magnificent with my latest acquisition,’ he spoke in a voice too familiar. ‘Look how I can make him fall down and join the dead in their slumber, or dance an obscene cancan between the graves.’

‘Pansexualis, I was sure you'd found your last shelter on the bottom of the deepest cove.’

‘Don't bet on it, babe. Your wimpy boy couldn't even overtake me. Well, I cannot blame him as the swordsman's bauble's made my psychic power wax to yet unseen might.’

‘I've heard there're more people after your head.’

‘Let them catch up with me on the other side.’ He burst out with laughter. ‘You're invited as well if you haven't lost your stupid hope to unlock the gate before me.’

I grabbed Fluffster's paw before he could reach for my buttocks. Fluffster staggered, and his head drooped to his chest as before when Aphedron left him. I went on dragging him through the cemetery. The way seemed as long as if it took a dozen miles to get to the opposite exit. When I stopped to recuperate again, I activated the vox.

‘Brother, do you copy? Get to the gates to meet us. Fluffster has suffered a vicious attack.’

‘What's happened?’ I heard the marine's anxious voice. ‘I'll chase the assaulters.’

‘It's been witch-stuff. Just help me haul our Magos to the owl.’

Angel met me right at the lychgate and led Fluffster to the parking holding him firmly by both arms. His festive garb was torn by multiple shots and blade slashes, and his face was tired and pale.

‘What about Pansexualis?’ I asked him.

‘I've got close to him at the passage into the underhive. I shot off a couple of his tentacles and made a few holes in his trunk but his abominable patron healed the wounds in mere seconds. He mocked me and yelled insults as he swung his kine-blades by his witch-power. They stuck in my chest and limbs, and I fell down from the bridge. When I climbed back, Aphedron was gone. I've failed you.’

He put Fluffster on a couch and sat down with a deep sigh. I patted his head.

‘We'll chase him soon. Let's pick up the ours and check you for poisoning.’

Fluffster had allowed me limited access to the owl's Machine Spirit, so I found the shortest way back to the mansion and started the engine. The fog was still thick so we had to stay grounded till late morning. About ten hours to reach the place counting early hour traffic jams.

I lay down on another couch and pulled a plaid over my head. Everything drowned in slumberous darkness, and a stronger wave of musk scent hit my nose. Already falling asleep, I could now feel the hidden flash drive touch my skin right against my heart. Dull burning pain. Sleep paralysis almost similar to my previous nightmares about the chaotic shrine.

Imudon didn't appear on that night as he'd been silent for all nights we'd spent in the city. Scarlet lines weaved into circles and spirals with sickening speed and irregularity till they unfurled again into a stunning tapestry of sunset clouds. I heard a distant call from beyond. A beast's growl. A mother's soft murmur. Something yearned for me with a lover's lust and a beggar's hunger.

I walked along a twisting path among the ever-shifting dunes of the cursed desert. All of my friends had vanished in the sands, a deadly sacrifice for the hidden treasure. I stopped at this crazy thought. I couldn't have done it. The outline in the distance came closer even when I didn't move. Now I could see every rounded tower, every parapet curve of its spectral terraces.

Colossal gates of red gold towered over me as I found myself standing right at the locked entrance like on my first visit to the Casbah. Carved shapes of theroid monsters came alive when I looked at them. They reached out with their claw-limbs, opened their drooling maws in wordless hunger. I froze at the awe of the place's raw might.

I heard a sound of steps, and a tall shape leaned over me. Angel was alive, he'd been able to escape the perilous traps of the warped sands. The glowing scarlet of his armour was brighter than the polished gold of the gates. He stared at me with a gaze I'd never noticed in him before. More shameless and hungry than Pansexualis after a deal of junk.

‘What's happened to you?’ I recoiled but my hands froze when I tried to make the holy sign.

'Nothing at all.’ He grinned showing his fangs red with blood. 'You've missed me.’

I stared back into his unfamiliar, cruel eyes of living flame. He extended both hands to me. His voice was almost kind.

'Your suspicion hurts me. Come on here, sweet girl.’

I reached for him as if something forced me to do that. His glove squeezed my wrist and dragged me close. Fanged jaws opened over my face, and the being's theroid tongue licked my neck. Suddenly the marine's perfect features formed a hideous, bestial grimace. He hurled me back with an angry snarl, and the vision faded.

I sat up quickly and yelled in terror at the sight of the Blood Angel's pale face.

‘You've seen an Imudon nightmare again. That's just me.’ He laid me back to the couch and picked up the plaid from the floor.

‘I'm afraid I've got another set of obsessive visions,’ I grumbled rubbing my eyes. ‘We have to do this quickly before we go completely nuts.’

‘Fluffster is in an even worse state.’ He shook his head, and I shivered when his sharp canines flickered white in the lamplight. ‘He hasn't come to himself yet, mumbling weird words in an unknown language.’

‘How has your legion got the Red Thirst?’ An unexpected question popped up in my head.

He flinched as if in pain. ‘That's the shadow of my gene-father's gruesome martyrdom, like the Black Rage. Why do you ask? You'd better not meddle into our legion affairs. We're among the most loyal to the Emperor after the Great Angel gave his life battling the Arch-Traitor.’

‘Just a coincidence. Wake me up when we're there.’

When I walked out of the owl to the mansion roof, it was already noon. It had got warmer, and black thunderstorm clouds loomed over the city fully veiling the high spires. The dusty air was stale and still.

Uncle met us with a sigh of relief. His face was neatly shaven as usual but circles under the eyes were even darker than yesterday.

'I've spent the whole night here waiting for you. We thought Aphedron had captured or killed you.’

'He's harmed Fluffster and Angel. Let Sister help them now.’

‘She's busy doing another injection. But that doesn't seem to help at all. At the first doze, he got almost comatose, at the second one he started whispering something we couldn't understand. He's lying in his bed, pale as a corpse.’

‘Let's watch over him for a few hours but we have to embark as soon as possible.’

‘Where for this time?’ He frowned sadly.

‘Don't lose your spirits, Uncle. I've succeeded in snatching the diary from Aphedron. When we get south and solve the rest of the case, we'll get a lucrative award and maybe even a promotion for a good place of service.’

‘Don't boast about that before we're finished, lassie. Fluffster told me yesterday someone else was chasing you.’

‘A team of nulls. If they haven't arrived here yet, they don't need us right now.’

I went downstairs to the attic. It was remarkably cleaner, and a few more windows were open to let in fresh air. Sister was sitting in the corner next to a dirty pile of rags.

‘He's come here right after you left. I've decided to let him have his rest while I'm treating his illness.’

Her eyes were red and dry as if she'd cried for hours. Her hand was trembling when I shook it.

‘What's up with you? Everyone has got their share of troubles tonight.’

‘I didn't tell Uncle. He was already too worried.’ She covered her face with both hands. ‘It still hurts.’

‘The madman has attacked you?’

‘Dreams like before,’ she whispered curling up into a ball. ‘He appeared before me, a snarling beast in human form. I was cowardly, I fled instead of fighting him to the end. His eyes glowed like embers, and his mouth was wet with blood.’

She hadn't seen the Pirate King in her nightmares for a couple of months by now. What had the infamous Black Legion captain to do with the place?

‘He overtook me and sank his fangs into my throat. His shape was more of a beast than a man then, and hideous dagger-claws tore into my flesh. I struggled and called out to the Emperor, and He alone let me wake up alive.’

I hugged the sobbing Repentia.

‘Your faith is so strong you're able to pray even when overcome by chaotic nightmares. The Emperor will never leave your devotion without answer.’

‘He's appeared at the sector borders again, Fluffster says.’

‘That damn heretic will get a good beating from the ours. Let's hurry now, Fluffster and Brother need you.’

The disturbing news made her brace herself. She picked up her medical gear and headed to the stairway. I followed her into the owl where Fluffster was still rambling in fever, his fur wet with sweat. Angel had given him a share of his emergency stimulators and had applied a cold pack on his head but the fever was getting worse. Sister wiped Fluffster’s face and made a few injections.

‘The same monster that assaulted both of us in the sleep. Aphedron could have never become that powerful. He hacked Fluffster's mind just to deliver a few customary threats but then the abomination slipped into the open door.’

Angel's wounds had almost healed, to our surprise. He was seemingly nervous, much more than during the flight. Clenching his fists and licking his lips, he paced back and forth across the owl. When Sister seated him down and started examining his face, I noticed that the whites of his eyes had turned red.

‘Don't tell Uncle,’ I whispered into her ear when Angel got up again and walked off to the back wall. ‘But let's prepare for a burst of rage. Sadly typical for his legion.’

‘But why? He looks healthy and hasn't been touched by warp-filth.’

‘A long story from the days of the Heresy, they say. When they're with their chapters, a special chaplain arrives to send them to a loon detachment or chop off their heads. I don't know that in detail.’

‘Fluffster would tell us if he came back to himself.’ Tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘And we don't even have a damn powerful psyker to wake him up.’

‘We don't need witch-stuff,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Only the Emperor can bring him back to his senses.’

Uncle opened the door, and his face was even grumpier.

‘As if the weather itself has plotted against us.’

I went out to the roof and turned northward. A sinister wall of black clouds had overtaken half of the sky, and both the city outline and distant hills were hidden behind the grey shroud of heavy rain. The wind had grown so strong clouds of roadside dust reached the ground floor windows.

‘We have to leave right now. Now or never.’

'The news do say this will be the mightiest storm in decades,’ Uncle grunted browsing his dataslate.

'That's why. I doubt the man's revelations will overweight the cost of repairing the owl, especially when Fluffster is ill.’

As soon as I ended the phrase, I heard a faint sound of steps from the attic.

'He's recovering,’ Sister smiled. 'Let's take him there from this horrible junkyard.’

'It'll be too dangerous for both parties,’ I shook my head.

'Great is her power and formidable her battle-fury that cast down the Warrior and turned his flame to ashes,’ the madman howled in a faultlessly clear voice. 'Yet her brother-rival never sleeps. He's robbed me of her burning presence.’

'Delirious as before.’ I felt fed up with strange occurrences and occult symbols. 'Don't miss us too much, Glyceris.’

I locked the owl door and leaned over the control panel to trace the route to the southern shores.


	5. IV

The owl had risen over the suburbs, and I carefully watched over the auspexes turning the speed to maximum allowed to avoid the coming storm. A bright blaze of fire shone underneath right in the district we'd just left. I clicked on the auspex screen and gasped.

'He's set the house on fire. This has been something worse than simple booze-induced psychosis.’

'We've taken all his treasures,’ Uncle said with a sigh. 'I doubt he had any reasons to live on after he'd lost both family and money. He had no children of his own. An egoistic life with a predictable end.’

'He must have started slipping into madness since the ship accident, or even earlier, when he found the relics stolen from the mausoleum. His later life was but a vain attempt to convince himself he could be normal.’

'Anyway he's probably dead by now.’

Sister recalled another pious phrase. 'Heresy leads to death, both spiritual and physical.’

I took a vial of tranquilizer and a large syringe out of her bag. It still might not be enough to stun Angel if he started rampaging around. I hated the idea of pushing him down the floor hatch, and we three were never a match for a superhuman warrior. His eyes had got a feverish gleam, his mouth was half-open showing sharp teeth. Even Aphedron was more calculated in his rash badassery let alone Imudon who was polite and reserved even when trying to scare me.

'I'm hungry,’ he said in the most innocent voice.

'Take something from the fridge,’ Uncle answered calmly.

'I'm thirsty.’ He licked his lips. 'Hope that's not...'

His pale face turned white as milk. He reached for Sister who stood close to him but I grabbed her hand and pulled her aside. She froze up trembling.

'Enough,’ I snapped at him. 'Lie down and shut up or you'll have to fly like your father did.’

'My sire's wrath is strong in me. I feel it awaken inside.’

I stepped back trying not to look into his eyes. Fluffster’s weapons were stored in a safe next to the fridge but I didn't know the code. I grabbed Uncle's gun before he could stop me.

'Lie down onto the damn couch this bloody second.’ I raised the gun.

'Do not ever dare to order me around.’ Angel clenched his fists and made a step towards me. 'Mortals should never threaten us angels.’

With lightning speed he tore the gun out of my hands and lifted me by the neck. I covered my chest and throat with both hands, and the same second Angel dug his fangs into my wrist. Drops of blood trickled down my sleeve. Angel staggered, and his grip loosened all of a sudden. I flopped to the floor holding to my lacerated hand. He fell to his knees and threw up. Fresh blood and half-digested lunch spread over the carpet in a disgusting abstract pattern. Repulsive similarity to Glyceris' blood drawings.

‘Please forgive me.’ Angel was himself again, and his cheeks blushed with shame. 'I was beside myself. As if some malign will forced me to attack you.’

'Once more, and I'll let you take wing, you childish crank.’ I felt an irresistible desire to punch him in the wimpy face. 'Fluffster is ill, some blooddamn nulls are about to catch us, and you're playing stupid tricks.’

'I should have told you earlier.’ He bowed his head. 'You know that when I was pursuing a vile sorcerer with my squad, a daemonic entity assaulted us, let loose by his evil magic. My battle-brothers all fell in a single battle while I was left alive to get consumed by the daemon's curse. It filled me with insatiable bloodthirst I was hardly able to subdue. Wounded and starving, I was found by Fluffster's friend, Peachy. Aboard the Morning Glory my thirst overcame me, and I attacked Lady Plodia while she was napping at the control panels. Even when the entity was banished and my bloodthirst was quenched, I was still troubled by the thought it might return. I gave my vows before the Reclusiarch and went on my Warrior's Pilgrimage to find release from my curse.’

'Still waters run deep. Clean up this crying shame and get away.’

'I'll tidy up the place myself.’ Uncle hugged me by the shoulders. 'Daemons of this planet are to blame, not the boy.’

'One more thing.’ Angel stopped and turned to me. 'Your blood tastes odd to the omophagea. In a disturbing sense. That might be the hidden consequence of the sacrifice.’

'I'll pay a visit to the Grey Knights then.’

‘To whom?' Angel looked at me with surprise.

I realised I'd blurted out too much.

'Some buddies of mine. Don't take it into your head.’

The rest of the voyage went smoothly not counting Fluffster’s psychic fever. He was no more rambling or shaking but his slumber was so deep any attempt to wake him up was futile. My wrist had got so swollen I could neither knit nor hold the dataslate so I sat at the control screen looking at city districts, suburb cottage villages, neat squares of farm fields floating by.

Next morning, closer to noon, the city smog had vanished completely, and we saw a thin blue stripe of sea water far in the horizon. Farms and woods had given way to scorched stone and scant evergreen groves. Here and there we noticed small spots of hamlets and storages. As the sector archive stated, even the northern coast of the sea had been almost abandoned by now, inhabited by border guards and workers of supporting infrastructure.

We were to arrive on the spot by the evening. I'd put on my everyday work outfit and cleaned my weapons. On the very bottom of my drawer I kept a priceless item taken from the storage of Auriglobus, a psykout grenade saved for the most dangerous encounters. I must appear at the gates of the Casbah fully armed. My wrist had mostly healed, so I took off the bandage and drank the last portion of pills.

We got to the area of abandoned docks, and I slowed down. In a few minutes a pop-up window flickered in the corner of the screen.

‘Your name, ID, destination, purpose of the visit?’

Instead of an answer I held my rosette over the sensor. The window closed down.

'We'll get kinda screwed if they have smuggler moles among the guards but that's better than making up suspicious explanations.’ I put the rosette back to the hidden pocket. 'Now don't disturb me for a few hours, I've to open the frigging diary at last.’

I plugged in the looted flash drive and opened the files on my dataslate. To my surprise, there was no password. Nothing but a blurred scan of an old star-map and a text file. The map showed the star cluster of the sub-sector we were in, and the planet itself was marked with a red spiral emblem. There were no other marks or comments.

The diary began with a short introduction of the adventurer's earlier life. He hadn't written his name, before retrieving the shard he lived in the proximity of the Eye harvesting small asteroids for resources. A poor young man, he was among the few volunteers to work in a remote sub-sector devastated by numerous Chaos incursions and warp storms. His work was only partially legal, and a great share of his yields was so warped it was of no use.

Everything changed when he found a shard of molten crystal in another daily harvest. Fascinated by the swirling smoke inside, he kept the piece for himself and started seeing the same alluring dreams he wrote down in detail with poetic rapture. In a few weeks the dreams had become unbearable, and he ventured to a deserted system at the very edge of the Eye where corsairs and every other ilk of lost souls sold and exchanged their tainted loot.

'I tried to attract a worthy customer as one of the locals told me these shards are desperately sought after by sorcerers. Soon one appeared at the fair, a mocking giant in an azure helmet shaped like a gull's head. I promised him fantastic treasures revealed in the visions sent by the shard. He giggled and refused. Let the others pursue the doom of Torquetum, he said. He advised me to get rid of the piece and forget about it.

The other day, two colosses in black armour arrived to slay me and take my relic. I didn't realize how that happened but the crystal filled me with such strength and fury I hurled them meters away and tore them to bloody shreds with a single thought. Crazed with shock and fear, I fled the place right after the brawl.’

Surprisingly, the writing style had changed as if a different person took it up. Now monomaniac, driven by the shard's influence, the man started saving up for a great journey, and his wealth waxed with astonishing speed. He got fully devoted to the force behind the artifact believing it was the most useful patron. He renounced all faith in the Emperor and secretly performed heretical rites shown by the visions. He probably was a very strong psyker left latent in the mess of the latest Black Crusade.

Years had passed when he finally hired a rogue navigator and bought a trading ship to travel to the other end of the Galaxy and get the final direction to retrieve the fabled treasure. The same place Atlas headed to. The description of the travel itself matched that of the log page perfectly, the gigantic shadow, the field of shards, the majestic scarlet serpent.

Intrigued by the key to the mystery, I scrolled down to the next page.

'We were two in an empty ship imbued in gore and full of the smoke beasts. The navigator has gouged out his third eye with the sharp end of the crystal in overpowering madness. I didn't need him anymore as the enigmatic power alone could show the right direction through the warp.

The scarlet serpent was no man-made vessel. Even great battle barges were petty junkyard lighters compared to its majesty. It drifted through the aether by the will of its roiling waves, long left by its formidable master. I feared nothing when I led the ship to the open docks and descended to the deck made of living flesh. It smelled of musk and ambergris, and I heard silent screams of uncounted souls that have been devoured by the serpent in millions of years. I felt the shadow of her blessed presence and couldn't strive for more but to drink from the cup of her whoredom.’

Exactly what Glyceris had mumbled. The imagery had vague similarity with that of the Dark Prince but the details were radically different. There had been accounts of ghost ships in the Ordo Malleus digests but none of those was as ancient and there was no mentioning of any scarlet serpent.

His trip to this planet was described in brief remarks, nothing worth attention. He managed to get inside but some unrecorded encounter made him stop writing. The last page had a few rows of strange symbols, and I felt disturbance in the warp when I saw them. Work for the Malleus or Xenos, not the Hereticus. The top line was a hyperlink. When I clicked on it, one more line popped up. 'Let you see through the beast's eyes to get one with her.’ The diary was intended to be read by another adventurer like viral letters some cultists send out to random mailboxes.

Reading it surely required some psychic skills but was targeted at a random person. The key should be there. I searched the folder for hidden utilities, looked at the flash drive itself trying to find a well-concealed psychoactive lense. Then a sudden recollection struck me. The flash drive had been found along with the crystal shard.

'I need your help, Brother.’ I turned to Angel still sad and ashamed after the yesterday accident. 'Use your augmented strength to force Fluffster's safe.’

‘Why? Let's wait till he wakes.’

'For the investigation business.’

Angel obeyed. Solid metal bent and cracked open at a few punches of his fists. Emergency signals lit above Fluffster's couch but he didn't even move. I pulled out the volkite gun and a small stasis container.

'Also coded. Brother, smash it but try not to break the shard inside.’

The container popped when he squeezed it in his fist, and the small chink of cursed crystal fell out to the floor. Fluffster had forbidden me to look inside. Something quite radical, but yet not even close to the tricks performed by my late mentor. I will no more use dubious things in future but I need to finish this case as we've gone too far to abandon it.

With a moment's hesitation I put the shard to my eyes and looked at the lines through the fume-stained crystal. Heavy smoke misted my vision, and the eerie symbols glared through in scarlet flame, changing to lines of letters, phosphor-bright and painful to look at.

'I found I found no other treasure worth it take me devour me I am part of your blessed maw your slumbering blaze your gaze of trillions of eyes my blood my flesh wrought by her touch into her sacred shape.’

A stab in the midriff let me breathless for a dozen seconds. I collapsed to the floor, and the shard slipped out of my palm. The three hurried to me with medicines and water. Uncle seated me back and took away the dataslate.

'You're deadly pale. Don't even try to deal with this nonsensical rubbish before we arrive. You will need strength there.’

The sacrifice mark hurt as a raw wound. I saw Angel reach for the crystal and quickly grabbed it but doubled over in violent pain. I stuffed the shard into a pocket trying not to touch it with bare skin. Still its presence was barely tolerable.

There were more riddles than answers after I'd read the text. I wrote down the keywords to search in the library of Uebotia and send a request to the Segmentum headquarters. Worst of all, the man had seemingly mutated at the visit to the fortress but he was a much stronger psyker than me. And I was still loyal to the Emperor, unlike him. It was sinful to use such blasphemous things but I hoped the Emperor would forgive me the transgression as I did my job of guarding the security of the Imperium. Yet my hope to remain a staunch Puritan as I'd promised after the death of my mentor had almost vanished.

When we landed in the dunes on the other shore, it was already dark. We had less than a day till the next appearance of the road, and I insisted on setting off soon as the pursuit was likely to overtake us here. One of the nulls could be bribed and employed for the mission, a stray thought popped in my head. But even a null acolyte wasn't worth a serious clash with another inquisitorial team, especially when I had something to hide.

The desert night was majestic and quiet. Dark skies were strewn by countless stars casting light on the vast sea of dunes extending to the horizon. The wind carried the same smell prevailing in the world, even more sinister when away from human presence.

About half a mile away a few faint lights flickered in the pathetic remains of a once beautiful city now half-buried in sand and turned into a smuggler village. Exactly the same one I'd visited years ago.

I decided to park the owl in the dunes and leave Angel and Sister to watch over Fluffster. They were not ready yet to meet the creepiest scum of the warped colony while Uncle had already been here. There was hardly anybody who could recognize us as only very few could live there for more than a year and not get crazy.

His face was gloomy when we came close to the maze of irregular streets. Last time he had barely escaped death from Aphedron's hands when we fled through the dunes along with three other acolytes. Two of them died quite soon, and only one lived for long enough to accompany my mentor to the fateful meeting with Imudon.

We stepped into the maze and found ourselves in a violent warp turmoil. The contours of buildings were constantly changing and twisting under unnatural angles, the directions of the meandering streets changed with every turn. Bonfires of weird colours lit the ruins of once opulent buildings lighting up wonderfully crafted tiles and mosaic panels with exquisite ornaments of exotic flowers and gracious animals. Voices were heard from inside but I couldn't even catch a single glimpse of those who dwelt there. Most of the locals were but ghosts and shadows, I remembered what our guide had said.

I noticed a human shape in the end of the street and headed there but it didn't get closer. My mind was still weak after the reading but I tried to use my psyker-sight to move through. The streets turned into a truly nauseating sight but I managed to find barely visible trails. It took about an hour just to halve the distance to the man. Almost exhausted, I called out to him and leaned to the closest wall. He stopped and turned back.

'An escaped witch,’ he said gruffly. 'I have some job for witches, and you're lucky to be quite young and fresh. But you'll have to leave your decrepit daddy.’

'You've guessed wrong. We're searching for a guide to the Casbah.’

He whistled with contempt. 'Witch talent often makes people go nuts. You don't look like one who has even a tenth of the sum to pay for that. Don't be a fool and follow me lest you get lost in the streets or find your end at the hands of the ghosts.’

'Just tell me where to find the guide. Our wealth is none of your business.’

'Because you're poor as a church mouse. The guide often visits the gambling den where I'm going now. Go with me and you'll hear the same answer from him.’

'Fine, but let me take Uncle there to find a job for him as well.’

'Just don't make me feed him.’

The man approached us with a few steps and grabbed me by the arm offhandedly. A psyker of impressive power, he was a strapping middle-aged brute dressed in picturesque rags of once expensive brocade and silk and armed with a few artificer pistols and a force sword.

'Only witches can live for long here.’ He waved at the twisting streets. 'No smuggling gang will survive a single night without our help. I'll train you for some extra service.’

He winked and made an obscene gesture. I replied with a careless grin but checked my chainsword and laspistol. We headed to a large brightly lit dome that had been a noble palace a hundred centuries ago.

'The only safe place here, girl. We gather here for the night when ghosts go hunting.’

'Why are you roaming the streets then?'

'I have friends on the other side who track every transport that crosses the sea. If newcomers are adventurous loons, I shoot them down and take their wealth, if they're witches I propose them a good job.’

'And if they're stronger than you?' I chuckled.

'I've got a warpflame pistol, sweetie. And if they're a real force there're some nice traps here to lead the morons right to the ghosts. Have you ever seen a fully armed mercenary company turned to mere pools of blood by a few pieces of dirty smoke?'

I'd seen much worse things, you bloody witch-hunter bait, I thought with irritation. It looked like there'd been no Black Ships in ages, and the southern curse amplified the population's psychic might.

We entered the dome through a half-broken ornate gate. The locks had been destroyed but a net of sorcery protected the passage from unwanted intruders. Most of the inner walls were missing so the den was a vast hall lit by bonfire pits and makeshift lamps where hundreds of people were boozing, gambling, sleeping in nests of rags. The air smelled of spice, cheap food, drug smoke and unwashed bodies.

Our patron led us to a large stone niche behind a row of carved columns that had once been the palace theatre. A ragged band of about forty people were sitting on the former stage. Their combined psychic might could open a rift that would easily swallow the world. A worthy case for a Hereticus operative I couldn't deal with.

Most of them were about my age, and the younger ones were all women. One of them, a tattooed lady with a large faceted jewel in the place of one eye, was playing a wild, barely human tune on a bone flute. A few younger girls were counting wraithbone beads at a smoking censer with narcotic mixture. A deformed, hairless man looking remotely like a genestealer hybrid was cleaning his firearms.

The flutist stopped playing and snapped at the ringleader. 'As if there're not enough broads.’

'Don't be that jealous,’ he grunted back. 'If you don't like my rules, ghosts will make better company for you.’

She frowned and reached for a decorated snuffbox at her feet for another pinch of junk. The ringleader turned to Uncle who was still standing by my side.

'Why the dodderer's still here? Scram or get a bullet to your dumb head.’

'You've promised to show us the guide.’ Uncle didn't move with his gun at ready.

'I promise much to get new witches to my little team. Your peashooter is nothing against the weakest witch here.’

He made a sign to one of the girls with wraithbone charms, and Uncle's sleeve started smoldering.

'Fine, I'll find the guide myself,’ Uncle growled and walked away.

'So take off your carapace and show us your witch-powers.’ The ringleader patted my shoulder. 'You need a new name to become one of us. When the moons rise high, you'll take your vows and give your soul to our sacred band.’

The deformed man pointed at me. 'She has Anathema's sign on her neck.’

'That's of no use here.’ The leader's face got stern. 'You'll take it off and destroy it before the rite.’

I clenched my fists pondering on how to get out of here and stay alive.

'And something of tremendous value that makes her petty natural power grow to the degree of any of us,’ the mutant went on.

'Much more interesting. Show us your treasure then.’

I didn't move.

'She might be an agent of the Inquisition,’ one of the psykers said suddenly. 'I've heard from an informer in the north that an inquisitorial band has crossed that sea.’

The ringleader grabbed me by the chin. 'No time for jokes. If you're not an enemy, you'll let us search you. But if we find anything like a rosette or a Hereticus seal you'll be eaten alive at the next blood moon by the Beast Brethren. And you'll be looking forward to that day as there're many of us who're eager to return their debt to the Inquisition.’

I took a deep breath and reached for the psykout grenade. The stronger ones would be killed or stunned while I'd have a chance to escape. The mutant put his crooked finger to his lips.

'Not a single move. A sorcerer lord has just arrived. He'll rob us with ease.’

'We're as strong as a Greater Daemon together.’ the ringleader said.

'He's an ancient legionnaire who's sealed a Keeper of Secrets within his battle-lash.’

Using the leader's confusion, I threw his hand off my shoulder, kicked the closest censer to the floor and leapt into the dense smokescreen. I've missed you, Pansexualis. My nemesis had got so powerful other scum mistook him for a sorcerer.

I ran between other groups of smugglers, junkies, cultists who paid no attention to another petty witch in the den.

'Uncle, are there news?’ I shouted into the vox. ‘I've escaped from the psyker band.’

'And I've found the guide. Head to the lotus-shaped columns in the eastern corner. He'll listen to your conditions.’

Surprisingly, the guide was the same man who'd led us through the village a few years ago. The world's influence had turned him into a similar mutant with purplish hairless skin and crooked limbs. He didn't look much willing to deal with me though.

'The young Interrogator has come back.’ He grinned with his remaining crooked teeth. 'I already have another request but I'll listen to your price.’

'Hundred and fifty thousand.’ I put everything to a dime on stake.

'You're kidding me, girl. For this price you cannot even walk half a way through the streets.’

'How much will the other pay?'

'It's a secret. But even tenfold as much as you promise won't be enough.’

It sounded crazy but I found the shard in my pocket and felt its power flood my mind.

'We have time to try our luck at the gambling table, Uncle.’


	6. V

I squeezed the shard in my fist trying to ignore growing pain in the solar plexus. The abomination's enticing presence veiled me with a cloud of musk scent. I straightened up gasping for the heady smell. Unfamiliar vigour and strength filled me as never before, and I licked my lips, intoxicated by power and lust flowing into my mind from the shard.

'Lassie, you're... no more like yourself.' Uncle stared at me anxiously. 'Some swag, of course, but mean as those underhive junkie mobster chicks.'

'That's the point.' An intimidating note in my new voice both surprised and encouraged me.

I came up to the gambling tables and pushed aside a few bored loiterers without ceremony.

'What about all-in, buddies?' I pulled the brightest of my smiles and winked at the meanest-looking smuggler at the table.

He smirked back. 'A new face, and not an ugly one. Do you have enough to pay after you lose?'

'A hundred thousand for the first bet.' I kicked one of the dead-drunk players off his chair and took his place.

'Whom are you mourning - a doddering hubby, a generous daddy or a thousand innocent souls from a trading ship?'

'Much more than a thousand. I dare you all.'

'This is even more.' The smuggler took a handful of polished gems out of his belt purse. 'If you win, take them. But if you lose, you'll dance stark naked on this bloody table.'

The gamblers roared with laughter. I grabbed a goblet of booze and emptied it with a single gulp. My midriff hurt like I'd just got a bullet to my chest. If I turn too much attention to that we'll get stuck here, I thought squeezing the shard tighter.

One of the men shuffled the cards and handed the pack to me. I let the shard slip down my sleeve, shuffled the pack once again and slapped it against the table. Two more smugglers added their stakes to the bank. I put two cards before the players in strained silence, trying to catch the thread of future unfurling before my psychic glance.

Unequal. That won't be too suspicious. First, second, third, fourth card fell on the table. I bet I saw what was the next one even before I turned it face up.

'Damn the beginner's luck,' the first player grunted. 'You shouldn't miss that.'

'You're welcome to win it back. If you have anything else to put on stake this time.'

After two more rounds the bank had grown so a few bigger players joined the game, tempted by the lucrative prize. Enticed by the shard's sorcery, they couldn't even realize they were trying their luck against a psyker card sharp. Cramps in the chest made me lean on the table. First drops of blood poured out of my nose and mouth staining my scarf, and I wrapped it tighter to avoid unnecessary attention. The table was a battlefield and so was I.

At the start of another round I noticed the guide who was standing at the closest column quietly watching the game. Uncle clenched his fists and frowned when I drew the first cards. Equal. I had the right to withdraw my prize, twenty times more than my initial stake. The largest sum I'd ever had, probably enough to buy a ship of my own. The price of a single short trip was enough to have decades of decent life on a peaceful backwater world.

Everything went almost black. I reeled backward, and Uncle put a glass of booze to my lips. The scarf was now soaked with blood that started dripping under the carapace.

A strong hand grabbed me by the shoulder, and a wave of psychic might struck my mind. I caught my breath and turned to the newcomer. Aphedron towered over the ragtag crowd as a demigod of ancient myths, clad in amaranthine armour. The baleful pearl of the cursed crown radiated on his pale forehead. He'd never been that majestic and intimidating, an embodiment of bestial allure and might.

'I have a right to buy the bank from you.' He put his hand on the pile of gems and drugs.

'Are you ready to add your biggest treasure to the bank?' Despite the magical intoxication the faint voice of reason still said my luck was no match for his.

'For a special stake from you. The place is swarmed by illegal psykers but their souls are already taken by the place's enigmatic spirit. I need a soul to pay for the passage, you need the bigger shard to give it a try.'

'Your cards are always marked. Uncle, call the guide.'

I felt so weak I couldn't even get up by now. The guide approached me slipping soundlessly between drunken idlers.

'Leave the prize for yourself,' he whispered. 'I'll take what you're hiding in your sleeve.'

I stuffed a handful of gems into my pocket and let the shard slip out to my palm. The guide's crooked hand snatched it in a moment. The heady haze dissolved, and I gasped for air rising to my feet. My rivals stared at me with sudden indignation.

'The witch has suckered us in.' The first player whipped out a pistol. 'A card sharp.'

The gamblers leapt to their feet, ready to tear me to pieces. I reached for my weapons but Aphedron raised his hand, and I felt the touch of his shard-amplified will that made the smugglers freeze.

'Why do you think so?' he said in a seemingly sweet voice.

'She's won every round.' The player looked down under Aphedron's brazen gaze.

'I've won every round in my life. Does that make me a card sharp?'

None of them was brave enough to utter a sound when Aphedron stuffed my prize into his belt pouch and held his gauntlet over the players' microchip rings placed at the bank pile. I got up holding on to Uncle's arm. Red and black circles whirled and danced before my eyes, even another gulp of booze couldn't wash away the metallic taste of blood.

'Meet you at the edge of the village at sunset.' I heard a faint whisper again, and the guide vanished in the crowd.

'Inquisition! An agent of the Ordos!' A furious cry startled the paralyzed gamblers.

One of the rogue psykers broke through the loiterers with a wraithbone charm in her outstretched hand. Before she could deal a crushing blow, Aphedron pushed me aside, and the witch staggered at his psychic attack.

'She's the agent of the Inquisition!' He shouted pointing at the witch.

His hypnotic power made everyone present forget who was the initial accuser. The gamblers shot their pistols at the same time, and the psyker's violent cry of pain shook the hall. Bleeding from multiple wounds, she rushed for the table in blind frenzy. Unable to resist the surge of madness, the loiterers snatched their weapons and entered the wild fight.

Blood ran under the overturned table as they all hacked and clawed at one another like crazed beasts stomping on the fallen wounded and dead. I pulled Uncle to the exit while Aphedron was unwinding his battle-whip for the bound daemon could feast on the madness.

When I finally got fully back to my senses, we were walking the night streets, and not a sound from the gambling den could be heard in the solemn quietude of the forlorn ruins. Flickering lights appeared in collapsed window frames and doorways and died out the moment I glimpsed at them. Distant spectral voices were but whispers we couldn't catch.

'Sorcery is outrageous.' Uncle wiped his forehead looking around. 'It's the same bloody street for an hour. The same twenty houses that repeat after another turn.'

'My senses barely work at all after this glorious gambling.'

'But your prize had been taken by this image of lechery.'

'What a flattering description.' A tentacle coiled around my waist and tugged me backwards.

Aphedron's incandescent aura dazzled me as I was already almost helpless. I stepped closer, drawn by the enticing sorcerous allure. A sudden wave of musk scent awakened the silenced hunger and haze again. Uncle stood still with his eyes thoughtless and empty.

'A defender as magnificent does deserve some gratitude.' Aphedron showed his shark teeth.

I pointed at his pouch. 'You can buy yourself a frigging palace out of purest crack for my gratitude.'

'I've just bought the bank.'

'Don't tell me I have to waste my emergency trinket right now.'

My hands didn't obey anymore. The whole body got lazy and limp, and I would fall down but for the iron grip of the Slaaneshite's tendril.

'You'll have a chance to feel like a movie star today. It's a shame you won't live long enough to see the reaction of the stunned audience at your workplace.'

'I'm not photogenic, sorry.' The haze was too strong to feel afraid.

'No one is when the Magnificent is around. Another compromising vid-log in a single month, what a pain in the arse for the poor workaholic Platydoras. Even a dirty mind like mine cannot imagine the way he'll get owned by the Segmentum Ordo authorities.'

'I've got some business to do in the owl.'

'You cannot get back to the owl without your shard.'

'You won't get to the Casbah even with one. You let me go today, and I'll take you along tomorrow.'

He frowned considering risks, then grabbed me by the face.

'I don't need the guide as badly as you. And I'm pretty sure you'll ditch me. Let me keep your dear Uncle till tomorrow then.'

'That's why they call you Pansexualis.'

'I'm a devotee of Slaanesh, not Nurgle.'

He took a tiny purple fleck out of a small pocket of his pouch. I clenched my teeth but he stuffed it under my lip and rubbed it on the gum.

'Get familiar with my apothecary's latest invention. Good old poison with a pinch of warp trickery. If you don't turn up at sunset, it'll distort your flesh and eat you away till you dissolve into a pool of narcotic liquid.'

'I thought you had a better opinion of my honesty.' I shivered as the jaw went numb.

'You dare to say that after you led a band of Iron Arses to my sweet garden.' He squeezed my neck. 'And I don't like owing debts to people as petty as you.'

He threw me over his shoulder and made a sign to Uncle. It took no more than ten steps along the street to get out of the cursed village to the silent sea of dunes.

'Tomorrow afternoon, the same place.' He pinched my cheek and put me on the ground.

Uncle rubbed his temples looking at the moonlit owl in the distance.

'On days like that I feel really old.'

Fluffster met me right at the entrance to the trailer. He had completely recovered in a few hours, quite earlier than I expected.

'So good you're back.' I shook his paw with a feeling of relief but blushed when I recalled what I'd done to his things.

'One cannot have a rest without getting robbed,' he reproached me pointing at the mauled locker.

'At least I haven't lost your volkite gun to Aphedron.'

'I've told you to keep away from the shard.'

'So I've done everything to keep it as away from us as possible. And it would have brought us a ship of our own if the lecher didn't purloin my prize.'

'What if this comes out?'

'I doubt this is tech-heresy to be a matter of concern for a Magos.'

'I've seen a rogue trader who sold a shard like that to a radical inquisitor. Both have never left the vaults of Mimas ever after.'

'It won't be honest to rat out your boss after she's done her best to help you in a moment of weakness. I'll buy you a crate of processed cheese once we get back to the city.'

'You swore you'd give up warp-stuff after the raid to Coreopsis.'

'One needs a fortune to be a staunch Puritan. So that you don't have to bother about funds or manpower.'

'Have you at least succeeded?'

'We embark for the fortress tomorrow in the evening. But I'm sorry for the uninvited addition to the team.'

The starry night was followed by a scorching day, and when shadows had grown longer and the western sky turned red, we left the owl for the smuggler village. Elegiac and seemingly harmless in broad daylight, the streets were completely empty.

I noticed the guide's crooked shape only when we walked up to the ruins. Sister couldn't hide her disgust at the sight.

'A tainted mutant,' she whispered. 'Are you sure the village dwellers are no foul Genestealers?'

'If you don't shut up right now, he'll refuse," I snapped back. 'His service cost us a ship. Or a life sentence in a nice place in the Solar system.'

The guide examined my team and pulled a sour grimace.

'The sands will trap and distract them. None of them has been touched by the warp. That's why even your mentor didn't dare to get there.'

'I have no other choice. I'm a poor fighter alone as you can see by my wonderful ammunition.'

'You may reach out to them but I doubt that helps.'

'One more with psyker power here, man.' Aphedron stepped out of the ruins fully clad for battle.

'The lady's stake was higher.'

'We've settled the matter last night and she agreed to take me in.'

Purple and scarlet clouds unfurled over the western dunes blood red in the evening sun. The musky wind was hot and strong, and soft, distant murmurs reached my ears with every gust. Enchanted by the place's majesty, we passed through the shifting streets of colourful tiles and evergreens, even Angel and Sister stopped muttering about heresy. Turn after turn, street after street under the same haunting sunset.

A faint feeling of danger woke up inside when we left the last street and stepped onto the crimson sand. Far away in the spectral mist, the painfully familiar outline grew from the dunes, as flowy and surreal as no human building can be. Even picts of xeno craftworld palaces seemed miniscule and mundane compared to the creepy un-harmony of this giant hive. A thin stripe of a path led to its colossal gates meandering under the strangest angles.

'Keep the road in sight.' The guide's voice rustled in our ears. 'There're no other roads. One step aside, and you're lost forever.'

'We're not new to the place,' said Aphedron.

The guide vanished with no trace.

'Let's rock then. It's time to kick asses and sniff warp-dust.' He turned to my team and grinned from ear to ear showing his shark teeth.

He reached for a little pouch on his belt and pulled an even more sinister grin.

'Damn, I'm outta dust and I'm getting angry.'

Sister got pale and pulled the hood over her eyes. Angel grabbed his bolter. Uncle frowned. Only Fluffster paid no attention.

'Damn, I'm looking good.' Aphedron marched forward, delighted by their reaction.

'Watch out for him, not me,' I ordered my team.

Step by step. Turn by turn. I couldn't take my eyes off the formidable citadel. The most impressive and unfathomable place I'd ever visited. Its yearning was growing stronger. A mother's call. A lover's craving, Aphedron had called it before.

'Have a look behind.' Aphedron's tentacle slipped down my side and hip.

I turned back slowly, and my heart sank. Aphedron was standing alone at a dune slope. My team was nowhere to be found. I probed my vox. The line was deadly silent as if I got to the core of the world or out to deep space.

He smirked at my shock. 'Their chance of getting out isn't too high. But still higher than yours.'

'That's not what I wanted from my very first missions. To lose them all at once in a risky game. I hoped to become like Plodia and Corydoras, not to stay alone and get consumed by your ambitions. I hope the poison kills me before you present me to the hungry guards of this place.'

'You have to eat a ton of cinnamon rolls and keep your legs open to become like Plodia.'

'I've heard about her Chaos-worshipping youth but she has changed and doesn't deserve such slander.'

'I have to dispel your illusions about this exemplar couple, babe. You've been away from the frontlines for so long you haven't heard the latest news. The adorable Lady Interpunctella has got so pissed off by her slick of a husband she's taken a custom of venturing out to pirate worlds under her old rogue trader guise pretending to do reconnaissance. One day, she managed to hook up with the fabulous Pirate King at last.'

'That's a lie. I've heard Lord Corydoras was at the head of a brilliant operation that let our forces capture his battleship.'

'The Panther managed to escape the wounded vessel. This fat whore, dressed in her best garments, found him in a rebel port feasting with his officers and sworn capers. She drank his wine perched on his lap, more excited than ever before in her husband's boring company. But when she swallowed another portion of sweets from the table, her corset lacing burst revealing the rosette, and, much worse, her pot belly. When she realized she'd got caught, she was ready to do any of his bidding to avoid getting exposed to the superiors. She used her rosette to let him recapture the Biruang, and when the sweet vid-logs of her amorous adventures were found by her husband, she fled with the Panther's fleet so he had to declare her missing in action.'

'I'm sorry for Lord Corydoras.' Another sad revelation.

'Why so? The cowardly man who wasn't able to win back his own wife is now pondering on getting back to the safety of his mansion on Luna before things get hot.'

'Shut up. No one is perfect, even you.'

'Even me,' he agreed with bitterness I didn't expect. 'I wasn't a deranged junkie like today in my better years. Running after perfection and pleasure has got me further from being perfect than ever. That's why I strive to get to the Casbah, lest my lascivious patron turns me into a mindless bunch of tentacles like that Inquisitor on Coreopsis.'

'How have you learned about the fortress?'

'The Panther told me. We were friends in the promising days the Emperor's Children and the Luna Wolves crusaded together looking forward to a brighter future. He hasn't mutated for the heritage of his royal mother, while I gave in to the Lord of Excess to find a new purpose in a world without purpose. The treasure inside grants godly power and freedom to the one who manages to complete the challenge. Maybe that's why you, a pathetic girl next door, are going to take it for yourself. Your only chance to become something apart from cannon fodder for the coming war.'

'I'm only eager to complete the case I've taken up.'

'It doesn't matter.' He stopped and dragged me closer. 'Your tiny pure soul will be taken by the guards, and a log starring you will be discovered by Platydoras right during his lunch break.'

He snapped his fingers, and a fly similar to my cyber-moth flew out of his belt pouch.

'Look at this pretty thing. A cyber-drone with warp machinery, films interesting things and sends them through the warp better than any astropath. I won it in a game of cards at a friendly reunion of legionnaires. By the way, I visited the place in the alluring company of your colleague enchanted by perspectives of Chaotic ascension. She was steaming hot and had nothing but her rosette on. But I got so drunk I lost her to a Death Guard Poxmonger. The fellow's got so many social diseases at once that I'd count as truly innocent compared to him. I was so angry at the loss I gave him a pouch of dust and suggested a rematch. When we finished, the lady was nowhere to be seen so he gave me the fly instead.'

'Do you really think such stories can sway anyone to Chaos?'

'Just something to cheer you up before you start earning your antidote. You have to spread your legs if you want to be like Plodia.'

My mind ceded to a flood of his psyker-might. Bound by the sorcery, I couldn't grab my weapons. Aphedron's tentacles coiled around my neck, one of his kine-blades slashed a side clasp of my carapace.

A faint gust of chilling wind muffled the abominable whispers of Slaanesh. Even the desert heat ceded. Aphedron cussed and put me back on the ground.

'Didn't expect them to get this far. As we now risk to face the law, come with me to the Casbah.'

As if nothing had just happened, he gave me a bloodcurdling shark smile and raised his hand in a dramatic gesture to the skies lit by dark sunset flame where the hive of dreams and nightmares was waiting for another madman's plea.


	7. VI

The outline was growing against the blaze of scarlet clouds till nothing but its surreal ramparts remained in sight. It was like a swarm of tangled monster beasts, a giant termite mound, a colossal carnivorous tree ready to trap and devour its prey.

'When will your poison start working?' I turned to Aphedron.

'Looks like the pusher has been a damn slacker again,' he said not even looking at me, fascinated by the majestic sight. 'I'm so close to my deliverance I don't care anymore.'

'Only one thing can be compared to the Casbah. Imudon's nightmarish shrine.' I felt pain in the midriff again once I uttered the words.

'Thank me I'll take your life before you can get there.'

'Tell me more about Imudon if you happen to know him.' A mere memory of my previous lucid dreams gave me chills.

'A renowned prude and virgin. Serving in that surly place only because he wants the same as me. To leave for a better place to flee the wrath of his hungry gods. That's why the failed sacrifice angered him so much he's still stalking you. Every single fail might turn him into a Chaos Spawn.'

'Is there a treasure like this one in the warped sanctuary?'

'A back gate which is sealed. The one who pleases the gods enough will have a chance to leave through the door to his freedom.'

'Why have you turned to Chaos if you all want to run away from its gifts?'

'People are never content with what they have. They leave their families, the Emperor, the gods but they cannot leave themselves behind.'

We stood before a portal of wrought red gold adorned with horrendously realistic shapes of distorted beasts by some inhuman crafter's hand. With their scythe-limbs, drooling maws and tail maces, the beasts bore striking similarity to the monstrous Carnifexes.

Aphedron put on his gold-crested helmet and knocked on the gate with his gauntlet. Nothing happened. The smell of musk got heavier and sweeter. He slapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the gate.

'You're the promised payment. Give it a try.'

I sighed and touched the massive doorleaf. The portal shivered as if the whole fortress gasped, the leaves parted with a beast's howl. Hot damp air enveloped us when the Casbah's maw swallowed us. A step inside, and the doors behind vanished with no trace. We found ourselves in an irregular tangle of meandering passages. The walls were heaving as if the fortress was breathing, a cyclopean beast itself, built not from concrete and stone but from throbbing flesh like the scarlet serpent seen by the crazy adventurers.

The call was desperately loud as we looked around, puzzled by the ever-shifting pattern of the corridors. I closed my eyes letting my psychic glance roam through the maze. Aphedron's soulfire was a dazzling blaze tainted by the scarlet shade of the shard, and I tried not to lose sight of him as I ventured out to the darkening depth of the fortress.

Unbearably sickening to the psyker-vision, the fortress spat me out back to the place we were standing. All I could catch was a shadow of some hostile presence in the distance, if there was any distance here at all.

Aphedron's eyes were closed as well. He took out the shard and raised it over his head, and it started glowing with eerie colours, the stain of smoke inside stirring and changing shapes.

'Look through my eyes.' He tugged me by the collar. 'Follow the trail.'

His aura touched mine, and I saw the very musky air condensing into greasy smoke, forming a thin smouldering string that ran away along one of the passages. At a swing of Aphedron's tentacles a dozen of his ornate kine-blades floated up and surrounded us like a shining cloud. I drew both my sword and laspistol with a sudden feeling of coming trouble.

We ran forward following the spectral thread through the nauseating mist. A swift movement in the corner of my vision, and half of Aphedron's blades stuck in the hide of theroid beasts that leapt at us from a side passage. Fearsome monsters of daemonic unflesh, they roared and swung the blade-claws of their multiple limbs, ready to tear up and devour the prey.

'Come get some.' Aphedron stuffed back the shard and rushed forward.

He pushed me back and unfurled his tentacles and his lash attacking multiple foes at once. I dropped to one knee with my laspistol aimed at the monsters. The beam severed a few bone-blades of the closest beast but it didn't even slow down. Aphedron tore it to pieces with his tendrils and sent his whip coiling around another theroid's neck as it prepared to slash at him with its limbs. He struck and parried with flowy grace of a dancer, his speed and prowess superior to anyone I'd ever seen.

One of the beasts bit off the tendril that grabbed it, and I leapt to my feet and turned on the chainsword right before it jumped on me. As it moved with horrendous velocity, I couldn't dodge its first blow when I sank my blade in its chitinous hide. The scythe-claw cut my carapace breastplate in half with a single gash. I fell on my side but the monster was torn in half when the daemonic whip lashed out with a shrill psychic scream.

The combat ended in no time. I got up, the pitiful remains of my carapace dangling on the clasps. Aphedron threw down a claw stuck in his armour and tore off my cuirass pieces.

'Shameful to wear crap like this. Your boss has money for marble tile and expensive garden statues but cannot afford normal armaments for his employees.'

'I'm a blooddamn witch-hunter, man. This frigging zoo is the last thing one expects from boring city cults.'

'A petting zoo the other way round. Your flashlight has been able to deal them great damage. Two claws fully severed, the third half-burnt. Pull your chainsword out and check whether it's still working after the first strike.'

'Very funny. I should have been less shy to take Fluffster's gun and tell him you'd snatched it from me.'

Strangely, no other theroids appeared as we walked further to the heart of the fortress. Even the voices died out, and the silent emptiness was suppressing and sinister. The passages were changing shape and direction with vertiginous speed so I closed my eyes trying to concentrate on Aphedron's psychic flame. Growing hunger like at the gambling table didn't let me think straight. A strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. Dull pain in the solar plexus as if the old mark was the only obstacle for a new intrusion.

Aphedron had got fully captivated by the enigmatic power of the place. With a mixture of thirst and desire that flooded my mind through the psychic link he reached out with his psyker-sight, focused on the long-sought transformation. He bound my hands and neck with his tendrils so I couldn't run away from him, and I paced beside him trying to pull out the grenade.

The trail ended at a gate of red gold similar to that at the entrance. Aphedron forced me to push it but nothing happened. He pulled out the shard and put it to the leaves after a second's reflection. The gleaming surface rippled, and one of the carved monsters opened its maw. The shard vanished for a moment but then the maw spat it out to the floor. Strangely devoid of its previous power, it was no more than a clear piece of crystal.

Every small pore on the breathing walls let out a thin, barely visible gust of smoke. Swirling and shifting, they weaved together and fused into semi-transparent shapes of theroids and distorted human figures. They rounded up Aphedron, and in moments he was lost in a thick whirling cloud of fumes. His grip loosened as pink ichor streamed from his mauled tentacles at a single strike of a smoky blade.

My hands clasped in the holy sign, I rolled down a passage before the guards could him and proceed to me. One of the smoke monsters parted from the cloud, its smouldering shape changing as it moved along the wall, beastly features reshaped into Angel's perfect form. I rose up holding to the wall and met the attack with laspistol fire. The blasts died out the second they hit the semi-opaque unflesh.

I activated the sword but couldn't move a step forward. My feet and back stuck to the damp surface. The horrendous apparition approached slowly and graciously, its claws tore at my coat as it folded in half and started losing its contours to wrap me whole in its greasy fume. The blasphemously familiar face touched mine, and I cried out when the spectral fangs bit into my flesh. I hacked at it again and again, but the blade passed through the smoke with no harm.

Lacerated by invisible gashes, I instinctively covered my chest the other hand and startled at the touch of metal. My Aquila pendant slipped out to my palm from under the torn coat. Unable to even shout a litany, I tore it off the corroded chain and forced it into the abomination's open maw.

The monster swallowed it greedily but stopped and recoiled. Its limbs started withering and shrinking until it was a mere formless stain of smoke with a spark of fire glowing inside. A psychic scream shook me, and the lump burst in a flash of scarlet flame. The wall rippled and drew back. Free again, I picked up the pendant that fell to my feet and ran off trying not to look at the gate.

I stopped at another crossroads to catch my breath. My clothes had turned into blood-soaked rags, my chin and neck were sore after the monster's excoriating kiss. Not a single sound could be heard around but slow murmurs of inhaling flesh. Narrow passages formed a maze of intertwined irregular spirals with no way out.

Distant yet hostile presence startled me. Nor spectral smoke, nor a hungry beast - the Magnificent had managed to overcome the guards by means of sorcery or superhuman strength. Insane in his desire for ascension, he couldn't let the bait go. I hid in the center of a smaller spiral trying not to give out my presence. His power should have faded with the loss of the shard, so there was a chance another guard devoured him on the way.

Closer and closer, he moved through the passages, and his crooning voice reached my mind.

'Where are you, Volentia? Come out, you sweet, sweet girl! I'm looking forward to having an old friend for dinner.'

I suppressed my psychic presence as much as I could and held my breath squeezing the chainsword hilt.

'I'll strip the skin from your body and eat your sweet flesh off your bones while your heart's still beating.' The voice got desperate and crazy.

So close I could see a giant shadow just round the corner. He'd found me. He was standing there waiting till I ran out of my hiding, unable to bear the strain anymore. I froze up for a dozen heartbeats. Then he rushed in, his tendrils reaching for me. I pressed the throttle and swung the weapon with my last ounce of strength.

The blade cut through the psychic projection. It was faint and diffuse, little more than the smoky likeness of the Blood Angel. When I stepped back, it spun around for a few seconds gradually losing solid shape and crumbled to spectral flecks that scattered in the air like withered flower petals.

I whispered the Death Incantation with trembling lips. The last prayer my foster parents said before sending me away with Uncle. Neither the raid to Coreopsis nor the grueling work in the traitor camp had driven me that close to the end. The trail had vanished, so I walked out to the wider corridors trying to remember the direction to the exit in the twisted geometry of the Casbah.

Narrow and wide, light and dark, passages crossed and meandered, the sultry, musky air too hot to breathe. My lungs ached, struggling with weakness caused by blood loss was harder than before. I repeated the prayer again and again, stubbornly continuing my way through the warped fortress.

A place too familiar. The bloody golden gate glimmered before me as if I hadn't run away at all. The other passages around got dark and shaded, something abominable and hostile stirring in the depths. I stood still as it was hard to choose between two equally gruesome deaths.

Aphedron was there, a pathetic sight even compared to his broken state after the fight with the Iron Father. His armour was a gory mess of shattered ceramite, he had no helmet on, and his face was so horribly flayed by the smoky monsters that skin hung in flaps on his forehead and cheekbones. He was desperately mauling the doorleaves with all his kineblades leaving ugly marks on the polished surface.

When he felt me come closer, he lashed out with his remaining tendrils. No match for him even in my best shape, now I failed to parry the attack. He dragged me closer and snatched the chainsword from my hand.

'We won't give it up, babe. The quest must be finished.'

He hacked at the metal with a yell of madness. A few furious strikes, and a section of the doorleaf fell to the ground revealing but swirling darkness beyond, so empty and hungry human language was unable to describe. Aphedron's mutilated features twitched and distorted in a mute cry of anguish. He lifted me and pressed his lacerated lips to the wound on my face licking trickling blood with his tongue.

I hissed at the burning pain of his venomous touch. With a yowl that was almost a sob he darted forward right to the slit in the gate before it could close back. There was no further waiting. I tore the psykout grenade off my belt and pulled the pin on the very moment he plummeted into the voracious void.

The blast was so powerful I felt the twisted unreality around burst and implode. I slipped out of Aphedron's grip and fell head over heels into the formless mess of colour spots and blobs of melting smoke. The fall lasted for an eternity till I landed into something warm and fully material.

I was plunged neck-deep in already cooling desert sand. The sky above was almost dark, only a thin stripe of dim red was still glowing in the west where the fortress had been at sunset. I pulled out my hand and wiped blood off my face. The head was heavy after the null-field shock, and a few hours in the Casbah had left me so weary as if I'd spent a whole year there.

Having cleaned the pistol and the sword from sand, I got up to my feet and tried to find the shortest path to the owl parking. My vox bead had been lost during one of the fights, chainsword fuel and laspistol charge were almost at zero.

The wind that blew from the north was unnaturally cold. The headache got sickening, and I shivered as a null aura touched me again. I was no more afraid of any posse as I was probably all alone after the cursed desert had taken my crew. I took a deep breath and stopped.

The chilling presence was growing till seven silhouettes appeared in the dunes in a circle of moonlight. Six were warriors in power armour, and I recognized their signature gorgets and tall topknots of the Silent Sisterhood. They were accompanied by a man in flashy rogue trader clothing and an ornate artificer cuirass. The one whom I had kicked escaping from 'Hog'n'Shroom.' To my surprise, he looked quite friendly.

'We've met at last, Lady Volentia.' He walked up to me and bowed down with flirtatious courtesy. 'My parents have told me about you. I'm Aeneus Corydoras, and my honoured companions are the Steel Owls cadre led by my foster-sister, Oblivion Knight Ephestia Interpunctella.'

The tallest Sister in a heavy cloak pressed an inhibitor button on her gorget and stood next to her brother. She made a few quick gestures, and Aeneus started speaking again.

'We've been following you since the evening in the city, but Lord Cynops has advised us to focus on Pansexualis without bothering you too much.'

'Your unexpected interference kinda scared me after the bar brawl.'

'The Sisterhood is watching over this kind of abomination. We've already discovered the diary in your owl and have learned about the shard that fell into your hands.'

'It's got lost unfortunately. As I'm seemingly a lone survivor of the accident, may I ask will I be prosecuted for what's happened.'

'I don't think so. And we have good news for you. About your crew. We stumbled upon them right before infiltrating the fortress. You will meet them aboard my vessel.'

Ephestia looked at me with certain anxiety and made a few brisk finger signs again.

'You have to watch out for a graver threat than Pansexualis who's suffered numerous injuries and has been reported to leave the system by means of a warp portal. Ephestia's special task is to hang around watching over the crap that's happening in the sector not unlike the sad story with your mentor.'

She frowned and put her finger to her mouthpiece. Aeneus just smiled.

'Sorry, sis, you know I've always been that of a blabbermouth.'

'Please send my best regards to your prominent family. Hope I'll see them again very soon.' I returned his smile.

His face got unexpectedly sour.

'Ah, you've been away while that damn scandal broke out. I didn't want to believe it myself.'

'Pansexualis has told me a few outrageous things about... the Panther but I was sure it was a lie concocted by the enemies of the Inquisition.'

'I wish it had stopped at the story with the Biruang. The outcome has been even worse. You'll learn more soon. Please follow us, the evacuation of the hive is in full swing.'

'Didn't expect our venture resulted in a warp storm.'

'The fortress is stirring, Ephestia says. That's why you've been able to get there. It's invisible to the eye right now but it's like a volcano ready to erupt. Lord Cynops has ordered the complete destruction of the planet.'

'Who's that frigging Cynops? I thought it's Lady Cichlasoma who should deal with that.'

'He's been Cichlasoma's mentor.'

'One more question, sir. Maybe you or the Sisters know what's the power of the shards? Even the mark of the Dark Prince worn by Pansexualis was nothing against that. I've gathered a number of library requests with keywords while digging into that case.'

'Only High Inquisitors have access to the data,' Aeneus translated his sister's sign phrase. 'You have to thank the Emperor you haven't been chosen by the shard like it happened to the man buried in the robbed tomb. All you should know that you've assisted us in the completion of the case and, if Lord Platydoras agrees, you all will get a fortnight off.'

Though the case had been seemingly solved, the shaggydog story left a disturbing aftertaste. Maybe Fluffster would be more talkative.

Both the atmosphere and the orbit were swarmed by hundreds of transportation ships and shuttles that carried people and machinery away from the surface of the doomed planet. The haunted desert was but a small yellow spot on the distant surface. There, in the cursed village down below, the lost and damned devotees of the creepy spirit of the place were about to offer their souls to the insatiable maw of their enigmatic mistress.


	8. Epilogue

The majestic Macan Kumbang, jewel of the Panther's mighty fleet, left the warp at the very edge of the Abilene sector. Enthralled by the splendid sight in the oculus screen, the Panther stood on the observation platform of the bridge towering over his motley court of brawls and revelry.

Uncounted corsairs and rogue traders feasted at his tables along with his own veteran warriors, gorgeous women of aristocratic spires and trade cartels trounced one another to warm his bed on each night. Power and opulence he couldn't have imagined in the years of the Great Crusade where he was a single cog in the False Emperor's ambitious plans.

He was closer to ascension than ever, lucid dreams showing the course of his yet obscure quest with growing precision. The ancient spirit enclosed in his armour still whispered to him for all the years since he had put it on on the day of his sire's betrayal. They had taken even the memories from him when they reforged him into another petty soldier of the False Emperor's hosts.

The Panther had recovered them long before he could declare it openly. His mother's heritage was ready to claim and rule it in his new, superior form. No one will be able to challenge him, not even the chosen Champion of the four let alone wimpy toy armies of the senile Imperium.

'Aphedron the Magnificent wishes to talk to Your Grace, my King.' One of his sworn sorcerers was climbing the ladder to his platform.

'What a loser. A goddamn lucky loser.' The pirate grinned under the snarling panther head of his helmet. 'Let him speak.'

The sorcerer raised both hands, and Aphedron's psychic projection appeared on the platform. Aphedron's wounds were healing but his posture was still weak.

'You've screwed me, bastard.' He showed his shark teeth in a mean grin. 'The fortress was empty.'

'Just because only the strongest are worthy enough to get the treasure. My guardian spirits have shown me your ridiculous stunts.'

'You didn't dare to try that yourself.'

'My ascension is waiting in another place.'

'I've heard the Despoiler has appointed a new Lord Ravager just days before.'

'Don't make it worse, you bloody whoremonger. I've bargained it through Zaraphiston but that Tizcan bookworm insisted on waiting till the start of the assault. And then the three shitheads come back from the damn center of the Eye.'

'You know what kind of showoff and bootlicker Korda is.'

'He had been Sedirae's shadow till the man died, and then he adopted his master's pretensions. He's kissing the Despoiler's ass along with Guilliman's wayward kid, the Darned Nose and that slippery swindler Ygethmor. But there's honey in the poison. The great fleets are getting out of the Eye.'

'Another Crusade then.'

'The last one. The one that will draw the line under this boring comedy of a hundred centuries. Will swipe away that house of cards still bearing the proud name of the Imperium of Man.'


End file.
